


Terms of Surrender

by Viraaja



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Armitage Hux Has Feelings, Armitage Hux Has Issues, Armitage Hux Needs A Hug, Armitage Hux Redemption, Bottom Armitage Hux, Bottoming, Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Lovers, Enthusiastic Consent, Explicit Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Feels, First Order Politics (Star Wars), Firsts, Fix-It, Frottage, Healthy Relationships, Hero Complex, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Oral Sex, Phasma Ships It, Pining, Plot, Poor Dopheld Mitaka, Porn With Plot, Prostate Massage, Protective Poe Dameron, Romance, Sexual Content, Sexual Inexperience, Top Poe Dameron, Topping, Touch-Starved Armitage Hux, Virgin Armitage Hux, Wrists, always holding hands, everybody wins, hux is a nerd prove me wrong, its almost obscene, no beta we die like men, poe dameron is the hero hux needs, soft gingerpilot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:28:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 201,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24380551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viraaja/pseuds/Viraaja
Summary: When the Finalizer enters the orbit of Ajan Kloss on the heels of Armitage Hux's "defection", Resistance ideals are put to the test.Hux is presented with an opportunity: Save his former crew by cooperating with Resistance leadership to welcome First Order refugees into the folds of the New Republic.The only problem? Kylo Ren is onboard.And Poe Dameron can't keep his hands to himself.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux
Comments: 349
Kudos: 451





	1. Breaking Atmosphere

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy this show boat of feel good feels with a smattering of angst. I thought this was going to be a quick one shot that would jump right into the action, in all respects. Instead, these boys have decided to take their time with one another. I'm well into chapter 3 already so no worries about slow updates or abandonment.
> 
> Also, for those that might know me from the SW Rebels fandom (psued TheTrashMan), this story will end up with profuse amounts of smut. If that's not your thing I'll put a warning in the appropriate chapter notes so you can avoid it.
> 
> No warnings for this chapter, just Poe being his boundary pushing self :)
> 
> Also, un-beta'd so apologies in advance for whatever my text editor missed.
> 
> Exclusively listening to Jenni Abrahamson - Reverseries while writing this whole shebang. Check her out, the whole album is dear to me.

The day the Finalizer dropped into the atmosphere of Ajan Kloss was the day Armitage Hux realized his life was a force-cursed joke.

“The General wants to see you,” the twitchy guard who led him through the base’s hallways had seemed particularly ornery when he and his partner barged through his prison cell door that morning. Hux supposed he had drawn the short straw by landing “Hugs time” or whatever the guards joked about in passing during shift changes. It didn’t change the fact that the guard and his partner were two of only a few people he’d seen in the span of time since being locked in that room. Part of Hux thrilled at seeing another human’s face that wasn’t Poe Dameron’s, who seemed to be the only person in this damned Resistance with too much free time, based on how often he came knocking on Hux’s cell door.

They had escorted him from his prison cell, through a labyrinthine maze of a century old fort and into a flood of sunlight Hux had never expected to see again. It had been weeks since his defection, or so he guessed. It wasn’t like he had a datapad to track time, just the ability to count meals and guard rotations. But weeks were what he had gathered, and by the frenetic energy of the base those weeks had not been kind to the Resistance.

Leia Organa had met with him over the expansive table of her war room, surrounded by her commanding officers and flanked by Ren’s Jedi girl. He had tried removing her identity from Kylo Ren’s, but his mind refused to separate the two. The connection, _obsession_ , that Kylo Ren possessed for that girl was the whole reason he was here right now: defected, imprisoned, harrowed of his position within the First Order. Hux caught himself frowning at the girl, as if it were Kylo Ren himself who stood at his mother’s side. Frustration tugged at his gut and Hux looked away before he said something stupid, but his attention caught instead on Dameron. He was _grinning_ at Hux, eyebrows raised, inquisitive, asking something of him Hux didn’t understand, like there was some inside joke he was also supposed to be laughing at, like _Hux_ was to supposed to know what the _fuck_ was going on, and those stupid words back on the tip of his tongue-

It was Organa who broke the heavy tension in the room, “We need your help, General Hux.” She looked as exhausted as she sounded and the thread of a plea in her request turned Hux’s blood cold. “The Finalizer has followed your lead and defected to our cause, and we now have a Resurgent class Star Destroyer with over fifty thousand First Order personal in our orbit requesting humanitarian aid.”

Hux knew then that this wasn’t going to end well for him.

He was led to a washroom where he was directed to shower (in a real shower, not a sonic like that which he had access to in his prison cell), and instructed to await an officer who would come by to cut his hair, trim his beard, and escort him to the flight pad where, Hux assumed, he would be held at gun point and fed lines in order to barter the terms of surrender for his former crew.

They returned his uniform.

Hux stared at it, almost as if he were waiting for it to catch fire, burn to ashes right there on the bench it sat upon. It was the only possession he had brought with him the day he fled the Supremacy, and it was the first thing that had been taken from him when he stepped off the Falcon and onto enemy soil. The fact that they kept it didn’t surprise him. That they had laundered it and folded it neatly into a stack atop his freshly polished boots did. But, he supposed, how would it look if the Resistance’s pet First Order officer looked to be mistreated, where would the narrative lead if it were found out that the _good guys_ treated their prisoners the same as every other galactic regime?

The shower turned out to be a greater temptation than Hux could resist and he spent a good 20 standard minutes soaking under the hot spray before soap ever touched his skin. He spent another 20 minutes after that pondering how he could smuggle the tube of body wash out of the shower room and back to his cell, whether he would even return to his cell, or if the Finalizer story was just a front for what was to be a long overdue and not necessarily unwelcome public execution.

When he finally turned the water off and stepped out from the shower stall he was once again met with Poe Dameron’s perfectly white bare-toothed smile. He was leaning against the sink, watching Hux closely, probably had been watching him closely for kriff knows how long, and suddenly Hux became consciously mindful of his body, as nude and pale as he was, untouched by even the vitamin lamps of a deep space luxury war cruiser.

“What do you want Dameron.” It wasn’t so much a question as a threat.

“Please, have a seat!” Dameron swung a folding chair out from beside him, settling it on the floor in front of the sink and its respective mirror, “I’ll be your barber this afternoon, get you fixed up right pretty.” Dameron’s cheerful voice was a dead weight on Hux’s chest. The mocking tone, the casual friendliness, it was worse than a dressing down, worse than a force grip on his neck. Those who used kindness as a weapon were rare in the First Order. It was dishonest, childish, a method of manipulation meant to get a rise rather than get results. Hux closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He could do this, he just had to keep calm, stay in control of himself.

His control didn’t last long.

“Forgive me if I lack faith in your-” Hux opened his eyes and made a point of eyeing Dameron’s appearance, as roguish and unrefined as it was, “ _Grooming_ abilities.”

“Why Hugs, is that a challenge?” Dameron approached him with a honed focus, and Hux drew to attention. It was a natural reaction, one burned into muscle memory from his Academy years, and he wanted to reprimand himself for the show of subordination. Instead he stood quiet and still as Dameron examined him with a comfortable confidence, utterly _unthreatened_ , as if Hux posed him no danger whatsoever. Not to say Hux had any intention of starting a fight, that would be foolish in his position, but the arrogance of him was, was, _astounding_ …

Hux drew into himself as he was eyed up and down. Dameron walked a slow circle around him, making a production of it. He stopped to tap his chin as he peered at Hux’s face, twisted his lips in thought as he circled around behind him, and finally stopped and made a show of staring at Hux’s penis which was, granted, nestled in an embarrassingly wild patch of pubic hair.

“What are you _looking at_?” Hux quickly dropped the towel around his shoulders to instead twist around his waist, which did nothing to hide the flush of red that started at his face and creeped down his neck.

“Well you’re quite the challenge but I think I’m up for it,” Dameron fell back, his easy confidence unwavering, placing a hand on the chair again and beckoning Hux to sit.

Hux wanted to spit at Dameron’s feet, tasted the saliva collecting under his tongue, sick with the humiliation of standing naked in front the person who may as well be his captor. _Dameron_ had dragged him from the Steadfast and to this stars-forsaken prison planet. Hux had demanded to be left behind, and when Dameron ignored him, when Dameron had grappled him up by the lapels because Hux’s leg wouldn’t work right and he was slipping on all the blood he was losing - Hux had even _begged_ for it.

He was under no illusions that Pryde would have believed his story; his ruse as a spy had been irreparably crippled. But Hux would have been executed quickly, efficiently. His sentence would not have been this slow decay of body and mind. Circumstance had left him without the agency of choice then as it did now, naked and unarmed within an enemy base, alive only because he could _maybe_ be useful, unforgotten only because he had snuffed out billions in a glorious moment of megalomania.

And before him sat an empty chair at the feet of his enemy, a taunting reminder of how far he had fallen, of how much further he had to go. Maybe that was it, the thing which bothered Hux the most: that his thread of fate unraveled into the distance, but a fog had closed in and now he couldn’t see the end approach. He was left waiting, his life suspended, at the whimsy of the Resistance who hadn’t lifted a finger to so much as hold him accountable.

Hux no longer mattered. He was no longer relevant.

Well, at least until today.

-

Poe thought he was going to have to force Hux into the chair. When he had become unresponsive, staring at the floor with an empty internal gaze that quirked at Poe’s conscious just enough to be concerning, he actually thought he was going to have to get help. He didn’t need Hux having a mental breakdown now, not with thousands of enemy troops at their doorstep. What the Resistance needed was to have already made this man sympathetic to their cause. Instead, they had locked him away to be dealt with later, happy enough to push one more player off the war board.

When Hux could have been utilized for information, leadership had sat on their hands, choosing to instead assume he couldn’t be trusted, no matter that every shred of intel he had passed on while operating upon the Steadfast and been good, had been tips that had turned the war in their favor. When they could have given Hux time with a therapist to deal with what was very obviously an extreme anxiety disorder, if only to keep him mentally fit enough to stand trial after all was said and done, they instead choose solitary confinement, a method as cruel as torture.

Poe couldn’t help but feel some responsibility for that. After all, it’s not like he had made as much time as he could have to drop in on Hux, not since those first few days when he’d been under a medically induced coma in med bay and an overwhelming feeling of guilt kept bringing Poe to the foot of his bed. He had been the one to bring him to Ajan Kloss, he was the reason Hux was still alive.

He was still unsure what he expected from the Resistance. He was even more unsure of what he expected from himself. All he knew at the time was that he was pretty sure Hux was bleeding out, and he was positive the First Order would know he was the spy after he failed to keep them from escaping. Poe also knew he had a hero complex. That he couldn’t leave Hux behind surprised no one, least of all himself. And of all the qualities _Hux_ possessed, incompetency was not one. The First Order would have known; _Kylo Ren_ would have known.

Poe had known, as it turned out.

He had suspected, when the first encrypted messages had started leaking through, that it was Hux. After Crait, Hux had fallen off their radar, just another name mentioned in the background static of the few messages they intercepted from First Order intergalactic communications. They knew he had been transferred to the Steadfast, command of the Finalizer stripped of him to instead serve under Allegiant General Pryde. They knew he was on Kylo Ren’s war council, despite the loss of command. They also knew that Hux and Kylo Ren did not work well together, and that the ascension of Kylo Ren to supreme leader had surely put them even more at odds.

The tips started to trickle in soon after. What came through were never scraps of gossip or subversive misdirections. They were informative, ruthless in their exposure of First Order plans, hot like a vibro-blade slicing through the pillars that held together Kylo Ren’s shaky command.

Information like that wasn’t made privy to just anyone. No, Poe knew the spy had to be of some significant rank, and the only person that continued to come to mind had been the infamous General Hux.

Who now stood before him, wet and dripping like a dog that had been left out in the rain.

Hux surprised him when he approached the chair and sat down, shoulders drawn back, spine straight, eyes dropped almost demurely towards where his hands sat clasped in his lap. But the whites around his fingernails gave him away, his hands clasped so tight as to chase the blood from his cuticles, bite overgrown fingernails into the backs of his hands. Poe couldn’t help but feel empathy for Hux. Poe knew what loss felt like, but he’d always had the support of his friends, his family. Hux had no one, not even the façade of the First Order to fall back on. He turned over the image of Hux laid comatose in a cot with the person who sat in a chair at his feet: just as pale, just as thin, the circles around his eyes just as dark as they were then.

Poe sighed, the amusement he felt earlier withering in the face of what was another person’s anguish. The least he could do, Poe decided, was make Hux look as close to his old self as possible. He moved to stand behind Hux, viewing his reflection in the mirror. The haze of steam obscured Poe’s face but he could see Hux clearly: golden red hair stuck at odd angles across his forehead, the even scruff of a beard filling in slower than Poe’s own beard grew, framing a downturned cupid’s bow of a mouth that was parted just slightly, soft, so unlike the expressions he was used to seeing on Hux’s face.

It struck Poe then, just how pretty he was.

Hux must have felt his stare because his mouth closed, his lips pressing together and his eyes raising to search the fog where Poe’s reflection should have been. Poe dropped his head, thankful that Hux couldn’t see him, unsure what he would do if Hux saw the blush now creeping across _his_ cheeks. Hux was _pretty_ , not like a girl, but unlike what Poe was normally attracted to in a man. He wasn’t particularly muscular, he didn’t smell of engine grease, and his personality definitely left something to be desired – but there it was, a bloom of attraction deep in Poe’s chest, persistent to be acknowledged.

Taking a deep breath, Poe folded the feeling into itself, promising to revisit it later, because something was there that deserved more than he could spare at the moment. Instead, he carefully placed a hand on Hux’s shoulder, his fingers curling down to brush the bony protrusion of his collarbone. Hux stiffened at the touch, and Poe felt the pulse under his fingertips flutter to life. The steam was evaporating from the mirror enough to reveal Poe’s face, and he met Hux’s eyes in their shared reflection. The silence of the room ballooned around them, suffusing them in a bubble of calm, like that felt before a storm.

“I’m sorry, is this okay?” Poe’s voice sounded steadier than he felt. But the question hung between them unanswered, Hux staring at him, his pale eyes unreadable. “Of course it’s not,” Poe rasped a nervous laugh, apologizing again,” Sorry, I’ll try to be quick.”

Poe left his hand on Hux’s shoulder and reached with his free hand to gently pull his fingers through Hux’s hair, watching his’s reflection closely, not trusting Hux to speak up if something he did was a problem and instead relied on his body language. Hux’s eyes were downcast again, pale lashes hiding his eyes but his mouth had gone soft once more, parted just so, lips wet and pink.

 _Ah ah_ – Poe reigned his thoughts in and focused on Hux’s hair, pushing his fingers through it again, finding it’s natural part and styling it from there into what he could remember his hair looking like in all those propaganda posters that had circulated around after Starkiller Base. Hux’s hair had grown long, the wet edges curling past his ears, and one errant strand refused to stay in place, falling forward over Hux’s brow. Poe caught it, smoothed it back with enough pressure that it might stay put, the pads of his fingers dragging over Hux’s temple and pausing there, holding the strand in place.

That’s when Poe caught Hux’s expression in the mirror: his face was frozen, gaze turned inward, lost in something Poe could not see, skin gone gray. It was quick, so fast even Poe’s piloting reflexes struggled to keep up, but suddenly Hux was jerking out of his reach, hunching over, a sharp inhale sucked through his open mouth as his body curled over his knees and his hands reached up to clench in his hair, fingers twisting tight and _pulling_.

“Shit, sorry-“ Poe panicked, hands up beside his head in a placating gesture, watching as Hux twisted his hair painfully, body hunched and shaking, wishing Hux would _stop_ , “Kriff, Hux, did I hurt you?”

“ _Fuck you Dameron_.” The bite in his words cut strange and deep into Poe.

“Alright, I’m gonna get some help, okay? Just stay here and-“

“ _No!_ ” Hux spun in the chair, grabbing Poe’s arm before he moved out of reach. His grip was painful, fingers digging in hard into the fleshy cusp where bicep met forearm. “Don’t. I don’t need _help_.”

But everything inside Poe screamed that yes, Hux needed a _lot_ of help, certainly more help than a haircut and shave, “I’ll be quick, alright, just stay calm and I’ll be back-“

“ _Please.“_ The plea washed cold over Poe, and suddenly he was back there on the Steadfast, a bleeding Hux in his arms begging to be left behind. Poe had fucked up, he had really _really_ fucked up.

“OK,” Poe dropped to his knees in front of Hux, prying the clawed fingers from his arm to instead grip his hand, “Tell me what you need.”

But Hux’s head hung low, hair obscuring his face from Poe’s view. The hand in his clutched Poe in a vice like hold, bordering on painful, almost strong enough to hide the tremble in it. Poe let it happen, lifted his other hand to cover their shared grip, smoothing a thumb over the soft flesh of the top of Hux’s hand. Hux sucked in breath after breath, involuntary open mouth gasps that prevented him from speaking, not that Poe thought Hux would actually tell him what was wrong. It was an anxiety attack, that much was obvious, and not something he was entirely unfamiliar with himself. So, Poe did what he would have wanted someone to do for him, he stayed with Hux, murmured quiet affirmations that Hux was safe, what he felt was scary, and that was okay, but he was here, not there, he wasn’t alone, he would be okay.

Gradually, as Hux’s breathing evened out and the slope of his shoulders became less acute, the grip on Poe’s hand relaxed, became lax - enough that Poe picked up on the hint and released the hold he had on Hux. The pale hand slipped from between his two browned ones to again curl up in Hux’s lap.

“I apologize,” Hux’s voice was quiet, but steady, his edges sewn shut and smoothed over.

Poe swallowed, shook by how quickly Hux had gone from broken to whole. He wondered how a person could mentally wield their emotions with such severe control.

“Damn, Hugs, don’t apologize. I’m sorry if I hurt you,” Poe still knelt at Hux’s feet, catching sight of his face as he peered at Poe from behind his fallen fringe. “Will you tell me, so I won’t do it again?”

Hux breathed out a harsh sigh, turning his face away, “My temples.”

Poe waited, expecting more, but Hux was quiet, that was all Poe was getting, “Ok, your temples, got it. I’ll avoid them.”

The next several minutes he spent not touching Hux at all. Instead he laid out the shears and razor he had brought with him on the bench at his side, busying himself with the mundane so Hux didn’t see how his hands shook, giving himself and Hux the space they both needed to collect themselves. When he finally turned around and approached the chair again, this time with the shears held loosely in his hand, he found Hux had styled his own hair into shape, each strand laid precisely into place.

“You can trim it to here,” Hux indicated with his fingers where he wanted the edges to fall, “I like to keep it longer, even at the back and sides.”

“Alright,” Poe breathed out, wondering at the tiny bloom of warmth he felt, as if Hux had let him in on some secret about himself. This was how Hux _liked_ something, something about himself, something maybe no one else in the Galaxy knew about him. “I can do that.”

He could do this.

-

_Do you have a problem with me, General?_

_No sir, not at all._

_Sir?_

_Supreme Leader._

_Tell me Hux, does my ascension to Supreme Leader bother you? Perhaps you think it should be yourself in my place._

_Not at all, Supreme Leader._

_Prove it to me then, let me see how you feel._

_I have nothing to hide, Supreme Leader._

_Then why is your mind closed to me Hux? Why won’t you let me inside?_

_Sir-_

_Let me in Hux. Why do you fight me?_

_Ren- don’t._

_Does it hurt? You’re only hurting yourself Hux. Let me see._

_No, stop-_

_Never._

-

Hux scrutinized himself in the mirror, tilting his face to the side and examining the deep cut of his sideburns, trailing his fingers along his jawline, smooth and soft like he remembered. The beard had been uncomfortable, physically itchy, and so unlike himself, unnatural. Hux was glad to have it gone. Dameron had done a decent job with his hair too, close if not identical to the way he normally wore it. The hair pumice he used was thinner than what he preferred, and he couldn’t imagine it capable of keeping his hair in place longer than several hours in the climate of the jungle planet they were on. Not that he’d seen Ajan Kloss for himself yet, no, Dameron himself had seen fit to share that information with him, along with the news of the fight with Palpatine on Exegol, and the apparent fall of Kylo Ren himself, which Hux had refused to smile about, not when Dameron was watching.

No, he’d already revealed enough about himself. The anxiety attack had taken him as much by surprise as it had Dameron. Like a strike of lightning during a sunny summer afternoon. The touch to his temple had triggered the reaction. The pressure put there stirred memories of Force fueled mind tricks expanding his skull to bursting; Kylo Ren’s spectral fingers burying deep into the cracks and crevices of his brain matter. Hux had been unable to stop himself, the pain the memories brought to the surface had become overwhelming, all consuming.

That Dameron had stayed…

Hux didn’t want to think about that.

Instead he focused on his reflection, giving his uniform one last examination, noting the repaired blaster hole in the thigh, the patch made from a piece of fabric taken from the hem of his pant leg, the darning technique securing it in place as professional as a First Order tailor’s work. Smoothing his bare hands down his sleeves, Hux tugged the edges to his wrist before pulling the familiar soft leather gloves over his fingers. The familiarity of these clothes bolstered him, gave him strength where before he felt weak. The stiff texture of the weave, a synthetic gabberwool blend that he would likely regret once outside in the humidity of the jungle climate, instead felt like armor, like a reminder of who he was: a person that was _strong_ , who had overcome the odds against him, thrived where a person should have withered.

The Resistance couldn’t take that from him. No one could take that from him now.

_Kylo Ren is dead._

He kept coming back to the thought, mulling over the relief he felt. That Kylo Ren still had such sway over him enraged Hux. He hadn’t feared Ren, not like he had Snoke, nor his father. Ren was childish, an amateur wielding the force, and his attempts at getting into Hux’s head were easily thwarted, at least while Snoke had been alive.

After, though, there was no one to keep Kylo Ren under heel. He had gone manic, taking what he wanted from Hux and the rest of command, or at least trying to. Sometimes Hux wondering if the pain was the point, if Ren hadn’t actually been trying to read his thoughts. If he had gained anything more than a superficial sort of sense then his stunt as a spy would have been over far faster than it ever began, so Hux could only suspect Ren’s force attacks were fueled by his newfound permission to torment him, to make up for their years of shared animosity aboard the Finalizer. Without Snoke to reign Ren in, he had become the monster he always envisioned himself to be.

Hux still remembered being thrown across the throne room. The pain from the ribs he had broken lingered well after the bacta had healed them, the bruises never fading even after months of treatment, unable to heal because of the subsequent force beatings he was to endure. All of command suffered from Ren’s abuse, that Hux suffered the most surprised no one.

Nothing hurt as much as having the Finalizer stripped from him, though.

And now…

Hux closed his eyes, straightened his back and pursed his lips. When he opened his eyes, the man reflected in the mirror was one he knew well: strong, powerful, in control.

Hux turned on his heal, his polished boots squeaking on the tile floor, and opened the door to exit the bathroom, acknowledging Dameron with a curt dip of his chin.

“Lookin good Hugs,” Dameron smiled at him, not the bare toothed grin from earlier, but something softer, more genuine. Hux hated it. “Ready to do this?”

“Were you planning to tell me precisely what _this_ is,” Hux drawled, putting his height advantage over Dameron to use and leaning into his personal space, “Or were you hoping to _surprise_ me?”

Un-phased, Dameron slipped his hands into his pockets, tilting his head to the side as he examined Hux’s face, “What, you think we’re lying about the Finalizer?”

Hux stayed silent. Dameron wasn’t going to get him to talk, it wasn’t Hux that owed him an explanation.

“Fine,” Dameron sighed, “Come here.”

Dameron led him a short distance down the empty hallway to where a window opened out into a tree-filled skyline. Hovering there, above the tree line, gray and gloomy and far in the distance, was the faint shadow of a Resurgent class Star Destroyer.

“Why are they this close?" Ice filled Hux’s belly, his eyes scanning the distant shape as his brain calculated the position of the ship and what he guessed was the planet’s atmospheric depth and gravitational density. “They’re too close, they’ll be pulled in by the planet’s gravity, what are they _thinking_.”

“They’re landing, is what they’re doing,” Dameron was behind him, at his shoulder, breath vibrating the tiny hairs on the back of Hux’s neck. He failed to suppress his shiver.

“ _Landing,”_ Hux refused to believe his personally trained crew were stupid enough to _land a Star Destroyer_ on a jungle planet.

“Yeah, a water landing, we’ve given them coordinates of a large salt water lake about forty clicks from here.” Dameron came to stand beside him, pointing in a direction beyond where the canopy of trees allowed him to see, “Their ion drives went catastrophic during their last jump, they had to release the fuel from the ship to prevent a complete meltdown and have been cruising on crude fuel for the last week. Don’t have enough left to stabilize in orbit so we’ve got them coming down for a landing.”

“That _ship_ can’t _land_ on a planet,” Hux lost it, turning on Dameron and snarling into his face. “If they don’t have enough fuel to hold orbit then they don’t have enough fuel to break gravitational velocity, and if their ion engines are down they don’t have shields. They will _crash_.”

Dameron watched him quietly, searching his face before holding his eyes, “We know, we’ve deployed what ships we have with tractor capabilities. Cargo freighters, big ones, we’re hoping to break their fall.”

A strangled sound crawled out of Hux’s throat, pained, helpless, he swallowed around it, “Dameron tell me what is going on here.”

“We’re doing what we can to help them,” Dameron pushed a hand through his dark hair, the curls falling futile over his forehead, “We received their distress signal about forty-eight hours ago, came into communications reach within the last twelve. A Lieutenant Mitaka has been our contact. He says they defected after the First Order announced you as a traitor. You’ve got a pretty big price on your head, Hugs.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Not as if he thought he was safe here, from the First Order, from bounty hunters, from the Resistance, “You are just going to _trust_ them, the idea that this is a trap has not occurred to you?”

“Of course it has,” Even Hux didn’t think the Resistance was that stupid, Dameron on his own, maybe, but not the Resistance as a whole. “But what are we gonna do? They’re here, we don’t know how they found us, and our scans confirm everything they say about the state of their ship. Whether we help them or not doesn’t change the fact that they’re here on our doorstep. If they are loyal to the First Order, why send a crippled ship, why not just blast us out of the sky?”

Hux turned away, stared at the ship in the distance, unable to refute Dameron’s logic, unable to watch as his former command plummeted towards the planet’s surface. He watched the phantom shape of the ship in its slow descent, saw something large and dark moving away from it burn up in a bright flickering flash. Debris. The ship was coming apart in the atmosphere.

“I’ll help you,” it came out as a whisper, Hux cleared his throat, tried again, “I’ll help you, but my crew is going to need assurance that they will be safe with the Resistance.” Hux cut right to it, addressing the elephant in the room because no one else on this base had seen fit to, “There could be over fifty thousand men on that ship, a ship without it’s reactor core, which means even if it survives the landing intact there will be no life sustaining systems, no food printers, no water recycling, no air scrubbers, no waste recycling. They’ll need food, shelter, medical assistance.”

“Two thousand four hundred and fifty-eight.”

“Excuse me?” Hux stared, that number was far too small.

“That’s how many souls are aboard. We got the number about an hour ago.”

“That’s less than a skeleton crew, where are the rest?” Hux couldn’t believe that the ship had made it this far with so few, officers alone accounted for nineteen thousand men, fourteen if not at capacity, let alone the engineers, technicians, mechanics, and all the enlisted crew and storm troopers. No wonder the ship was falling apart upon entry.

Dameron was quiet, just shook his head, “We gotta hurry, there’s a transport waiting for us, we want you there when the ship lands.” He turned away.

“Dameron.” The man stopped short, looked at Hux over his shoulder, a weariness in his eyes that hadn’t been there earlier. “Will you help them?”

“Doing everything we can, Hugs,” He had turned fully towards him, eyes holding his. “Will _you_ help us? They’re here because they think you’ve defected, switched sides, that we can offer them protection and safety like we have you.”

But they both knew that wasn’t the situation, not nearly.

“What do you want from me,” the words didn’t come easy.

“Just make this easy, don’t do anything stupid,” Dameron lifted his arms, made a waving gesture at him. Dameron talked with his hands, what a strange quality. “All I can tell you is that the First Order is on the run, ranks have been split and whoever survived Exegol is either in hiding or fighting amongst one another. We have no desire for more bloodshed, we want this war to _end._ But, you’re alive, and for whatever reason these people are following you.”

These ideas had already occurred to Hux. That he could take these men, rally them, take the Resistance base from within, gather what was left of the First Order and lead them to glory as he had always dreamed.

But Hux was _tired_. And his men had risked their lives to come licking at the enemy’s boots, for help, for safety, for protection, for _him_.

This would be betraying the First Order. Not like before, when he tried to save it by getting rid of Ren. But as a traitor, actively dismantling the very morals and codes he had committed to spreading across the galaxy.

Hux would be a _traitor._

But hadn’t the First Order already betrayed him? When it revealed itself as nothing more than the regurgitated dreams of a corrupt Empire, had that not been a betrayal? The First Order wasn’t change and order for the galaxy, it was the dying breath of failed regime. It was the dream of his father and his cronies, the vision of some crazed Sith-aligned ghost, enraged they had all been forgotten to the far reaches of the galaxy.

What more did he owe his father’s dream? Why wouldn’t his footsteps lead to his very same fate? And when Hux had done so much to step outside of them, what sense was there to follow their same path?

He could save his crew, protect what men he had left.

Hux could be different, he could be _better_.

“If you aid my men, give amnesty to them and any other First Order who requests it, then you have my word I won’t betray that offer,” Hux affirmed, not only to Dameron, but to himself as well. “I will help you spread word to the Order, that the war can end, that they can stop fighting, stop running.”

Dameron was silent, lips pressed into a thin line, “Alright. I can’t make any promises, that’s for General Organa and the interim government, but I believe you. I’ll do everything I can to make this work. I trust your word. I hope you trust mine.”

Hux had never hoped for much of anything in his life, but he wondered if that was what this feeling was in his chest: a warm bloom of want, desperate and small and so very delicate.

“Lead the way, Dameron,” Hux would have to find out if hope was all the Resistance claimed it to be.

-

The transport was a basic personal carrier. A skeleton of a ship that had no space flight capabilities. While not a ground terrain vehicle, it maneuvered like one, hovering over and around obstacles with about as much finesse as a Rathtar. Poe gripped the straps of his safety apparatus, feet planted wide on the grilled floor to keep his body from lurching with every dip and shake. Hux was strapped in beside him, face green and lips pursed as if they were the last barrier between the floor and whatever he had for breakfast that morning.

Poe’s thoughts kept drifting to his conversation with Hux in the hallway. Call him naïve but he _believed_ Hux. Despite his history, Dameron prided himself on being able to read people, and everything he was getting from Hux affirmed that he was being truthful.

And the anxiety attack in the bathroom…That was not something easily faked. It did not sit well with Poe. Whether the enemy or not, he did not like to watch anyone suffer. Hux deserved a lot of things, but the mental anguish he displayed was, Poe suspected, some leftover remnant of his past that had come to surface. Trauma. That was not justice, no one deserved it. A man needed a code and that was not in Poe’s.

 _My temples_.

He remembered well his encounter with Kylo Ren aboard to Finalizer, strapped to a chair while Ren dug through his mind. It hadn’t hurt, at first. It had been a pressure, as if Ren were physically filling his skull with an extra presence that would not fit. Very quickly the pressure had given over to pain, and the splitting, throbbing pulse of Ren’s force had ripped through Poe’s thoughts in its search. The easiest way to alleviate that pain had been to let Ren in. Give him what he wanted. Poe had not lasted more than several seconds under Kylo Ren’s assault.

His head had hurt for days after, a deep ache in his brain, spilling out through his temples, phantom feelings of that force attack lingering long after Ren was gone. He remembered Leia soothing him, her own force touch easing the pain from his mind. So different from her son’s: filled with light and goodness and a gentle care.

So, Poe had his suspicions. He had his experience and he held that knowledge close. What had life been like with a man like Kylo Ren always at your heels? Hux had not reacted with the news of Kylo Ren’s passing, but he didn’t react to much of what Poe said. That in and of itself had Poe thinking he was right about his feelings.

Poe’s instincts had backfired on him enough times for him to stay weary, but he hadn’t been a successful smuggler without the uncanny ability to read people and situations well. Likely, it was those same skills that allowed him to be as good of a pilot as he was.

Certainly a better pilot than whoever was driving this transport.

“Hey, greenie, can you smooth the ride out?” Dameron yelled into the earpiece, a tiny device the linked him and all other short range Resistance personnel into a shared communications channel.

“Sorry sir, the terrain here is swampy, the stabilizers are having a hard time keeping up,” the voice over the comm was familiar, a woman names Myn, not one of his pilots but someone he knew from reputation.

“Try hugging the western edge of the shrub line, where the larger trees grow, the forest floor should be more solid there,” Poe knew this swamp well, he rode his speeder through these parts during his free hours, when he needed to be alone, let off some of the energy that inevitably built up now that he wasn’t engaged in weekly dogfights with First Order TIEs.

Within moments the transport’s shaking subsided, the dips and twists still jolting but the constant ricochet of being tossed around like a bouncing ball faded. Poe glanced at Hux. His eyes had closed, but the color had returned to his face. Well, whatever color Hux’s blood could muster. He was still pale, but at least he was a _normal_ color.

“Doing okay Hugs?” His concern was genuine, for many reasons.

“Just swell,” Hux cracked an eye open to glare at him with a single withering stare.

Dameron grinned at him, reaching out and slapping his hand down on Hux’s knee without thought. Hux went rigid, his eyes flying open to stare at the hand, breath sucked between his teeth, face turning a whole new color, red.

“Hey, sorry,” Awkwardly Poe removed his hand, but not without another gentle tap, because sure, keep touching the man who obviously didn’t want to be touched, “Damn, it’s a habit Hugs, don’t think I’m weird, okay?”

“Weird would be a compliment compared to what I actually think of you,” The red in Hux’s face was not dissipating, rather growing deeper. But there was a twist at the corners of Hux’s lips, something akin to a smile-

Had Hux made a _joke_?

Poe tested his theory, chuckle breathy, leaning in close to Hux and wondering aloud, “Don’t suppose you want to tell me how you really feel about me, eh?”

Hux continued to glare, but the pull at his lips didn’t subside, “I wouldn’t want to hurt your frail feelings.”

“Hugs, I’m touched you care,” Poe laughed outright, deep and loud. Hux turned away, hiding his red face in the shifting shadows of the transport.

“We’re five minutes from the drop site, Sir,” Myn’s voice chimed into his ear.

Dameron raised his fingers to the com, switching lines to that of Leia’s- if they were five minutes out he should be in range of command’s private channel, “Dameron here, ETA is five minutes, we’re coming in hot.”

“Well done General,” Leia’s voice was smooth and cool like water, washing calm through him as it always did. “The bird is crippled but she can still glide. Let our guest know we have the situation under control.”

Poe’s eyes slid to Hux, who was watching him with calculated interest, likely trying to piece together clues to his conversation, “Will do, see you in a few.”

Cutting the line to the command channel, Poe turned to Hux again, all smiles, “Seems the tractor beams are working, we’ve got the ship in a controlled descent.”

Hux’s eyes searched him, expression mute. Poe wondered at the lack of emotion, suspected it hid something far stronger under the surface. Where Poe would have sighed in relief or whooped with joy, Hux closed in on himself, tucked himself neatly into the perfect picture of control. Nudging his knee against Hux’s Poe smiled at him, hoping to get _some_ sort of reaction, but Hux’s eyes slid away to stare into the space beyond, mouth just a fraction tighter. Well, it was something.

Those last five minutes stretched, the silence pervading, suspending them in a nervous tension Poe would do anything to break. He _hated_ the quiet.

When the transport slowed and jumped to a sloppy stop, Poe was already unstrapping his safety apparatus, fingers flying over the buckles as if he were evacuating the cockpit of his fighter. Turning to Hux he leaned over him to do the same, not hesitating to reach for the strap across his hips, fingers brushing the fabric of his jacket just as Hux sucked in a breath and covered Poe’s hands with his own. Poe paused, lifted his eyes to find Hux staring at him, and froze with the intensity of what he saw there.

“I can do that,” Hux’s voice was quiet, still like water. His eyes bored up into Poe, dilated in the shifting light, whites just edging the pale ring of his irises. Poe realized how close they were, where his hands were, felt how Hux’s stomach pulled away from his fingertips with each exhale, felt the heat radiating from his body, hot from the weather, or from something else? And there was that feeling again, the one from earlier, but stronger, determined to not be ignored.

Poe swallowed, he swore it made a sound. Hux had not stopped staring.

His hands still covered Poe’s.

“Sorry,” Poe smirked, coy, not one to back down even in the face of incredible odds, “There I go, being weird again.” He released the mechanism of the buckle, twisted his wrists up to brush his fingertips along Hux’s gloved palms as he pulled his hands away, because why stop now when he was so close to the edge?

He swore he saw Hux shiver, could have imagined it, thought he might take the time to later, when he was alone in his quarters.

Oh…

_Oh._

_Shit._

-

The Finalizer descended in slow motion, splitting the sky open like a raw wound. A monolithic wedge of black against the bright blue of the atmosphere, it hovered over the calm horizon line of a lake that looked more like an ocean, the searing white sphere of a noontime sun like a spotlight shining on the stage of some horrible theatre production.

Hux watched in awe. Struck by the uneasy witness of such a massive piece of human engineering caught in free fall. Forgetting for only a moment that over two thousand living souls were onboard, strapped in and praying for a rough landing rather than a crash.

Six tractor beams from five ships guided its descent. The largest of the freighters was at the Finalizer’s rear with a dual beam designed for deep space tugging. It was old tech, almost archaic now that hyper speed jump systems were equipped on even the smallest of ships. That the Resistance had a few of these freighters in its fleet did not surprise Hux. That they were using them to assist an enemy ship did.

The four other freighters surrounded the Finalizer on each side: two at the bow, keeping her from tilting dangerously into a complete nosedive, the other two at the wingtips, caught balancing her weight from falling into a spin. It was tricky work, the five freighters having to work in tandem to keep a ship easily twenty times the size of the largest of them balanced in free fall.

The Finalizer was a beast of a ship though, not easily corralled. Hux watched as she tipped and twisted, breath catching in his throat the moment one on the beams at the bow broke, the whole of her dipping so deeply as to pull the remaining freighter at her bow along with her. Those few harrowing seconds left his hands in a sweat, bile in the back of his throat, but then the freighter was back in place, swiftly restoring its connection and recovering the Finalizer’s fall.

Hux released the breath he had been holding, taking an anxious step forward, hands clasped tightly behind his back. His body was alight with nervous tension, a fire spreading up his spine, coalescing in the tightness of his throat, the racing of his heart, the pounding of blood in his veins.

The Finalizer was falling from the sky, and he stood on the bank of a foreign shore, with the enemy at his back while watching the only home he had ever truly known plummet to its death before him.

The bow touched the water first. Even with the freighters slowing her, she had to be traveling at thirty or forty knots per hour. The sound was shocking. A loud crack ripped over the water of the lake, followed by a series of sharp pops. A wave of water swelled around her as her body was swallowed, displaced water rising in one massive gentle wave over her sides, a moment of calm, before suddenly breaking, white water shooting high up into the sky with the force of her weight.

And then the groaning started. At first a quiet yawn, it quickly built into a deep moaning song as the mass of the ship dropped fully down into the water. The Finalizer bottomed out in a deep bob, rising above the water for just a moment before the lake snatched her back down again, sucking and lapping at her, sending tall violent waves to the shore, surging far past the tide lines of the beach.

Hux imagined he could see the structural damage traveling through her belly. Load-bearing beams built to diffuse energetic impacts of heavy cannon fire buckling under the pressure of a physical force. The durasteel plating of her keel peeling back as the interior framing collapsed, water rushing in through her seams to flood the docking bays, the gun turrets and cannon housings. The most vulnerable parts of her were located at the very center of the ship, protected within a reinforced cocoon: command quarters, the med bay, the engineering brain which controlled the ships life sustaining systems. If his crew was as smart as he gave them credit for that is where they would be holed up now. The cocoon was designed to survive catastrophic damage to the ship. In the case that an explosion did not take out the ships life support systems, the cocoon would be able to survive deep space and give those who could not evacuate a chance to be recovered.

No one inside an ordinary ship would survive a crash like this, but the Finalizer was special; she was designed for intergalactic warfare, designed to save the lives of those on board as well as she could take the lives of her enemies. Hux knew her limitations, knew her strengths and weaknesses, knew his crew. They would survive this.

Even as he watched water breach her hull. Watched her bow peak up from the water line before dipping down again never to resurface. She was sinking. She was drowning.

Standing here, alone on this foreign shore, Hux felt as if he were drowning with her.

“You okay?” Dameron’s voice cut into him and Hux could not stop his body from jolting at the sound. Poe was right there, behind him, leaning in over his shoulder, mouth close to his ear and his voice pitched just loudly enough to be heard over the crashing waves of the water and the dying moans of his ship.

 _What do you think Dameron?_ Was what he wanted to say but Hux knew if he tried to speak now the words would not come. Instead, he jerked his head in a sharp negative, hoping Dameron would get the message and back off, give him his space. Hux didn’t want to talk right now, he didn’t want to think. What he wanted was to walk into those swelling waves and get pulling into the undertow, wash away with the tide and sink to the cool depths of the lake floor, bury himself in sand and silt while water filled his lungs and chased away this _pain._

Hux lifted his eyes from the sinking Finalizer to stare into the sun, the bright light prickling his eyes and stinging tears onto his eyelashes.

Dameron was saying something, but Hux did not hear what, wasn’t even sure if he was talking to him. A moment later there was a hand at his elbow, firm but gentle, and he was being guided into the shade of a transport where a folding chair sat. Hux allowed himself to be led, unconcerned of the optics for what might be the first time in his adult life. Dameron pushed a canteen into his hands as he sat him down, the cap already removed and clear cool water splashing over the edge to wet his gloves. Hux was _hot_ , sweat sticking his jacket to his back, the gloves slick between the leather and his palms. He lifted the canteen to wet his lips, sipping at the water slowly, his tunneling vision making him light headed.

Hux wonder for the first time, if he could do this. He was not the same man he was before, aboard the Finalizer. He understood that he was not well. _Weak, pathetic boy._ If his father saw him now, he would be playing right into his expectations. Poor little Armitage, so pathetic even his enemies pitied him. Went running to the other side the moment things got scary. So weak he had to be saved by the shining knight in armor.

 _Dameron_.

“-Looked like he was about to pass out-“

Dameron was speaking to someone. Hux looked up and saw Ren’s Jedi girl, a small compact thing that glowed as brightly as the sun in the glare of her desert garb. She was nodding her head at whatever Poe was telling her, but her eyes were on Hux, mouth relaxed and her gaze curious. She looked tired. _How strange_. Hux stared back and for a moment he felt calm suffuse him, the prickle of nerves receding in the presence a soothing mental touch-

“ _Stop._ ” Hux snapped, dropping the canteen as he stood up from the chair, knocking it over in his haste to put distance between him and the girl. He was slow to recognize the feel of her force but now that he knew it for what it was Hux was sick with it, dizzy with unease.

The girl took a step back but did not retreat entirely, putting just enough space between herself and Hux that Dameron could swoop down and pick up the spilled canteen, “I’m sorry, I thought I could help.” The sensation had retreated but the ghost of another’s was left in its place.

Hux was shaking, it had to be visible to anyone who would look. He glanced around and saw that most everyone’s attention was on the Finalizer, but he had caught the attention of a few - A small girl and a man who Hux recognized as FN-2187 were watching them, two medics that were prepping stretchers in the back of a transport had paused to observe the altercation, and Leia Organa, who was alone under a shade structure just a few meters away, was entirely focused on him.

The way Organa watched him, her expression muted but her focus sharp, made Hux’s skin crawl. Another force user, skilled like Snoke, not an amateur like Ren or his scavenger girl. Would he even know if she was touching his mind? Hux swallowed, looked away, squeezed his eyes shut for a brief, self-indulgent moment of weakness.

“Hux,” The word breathed through him, quiet and close. Hux’s ever frayed nerve endings were attuned to the source: Dameron. “Sit down, come on. You’re turning gray.” And Hux was being lowered down into the chair again. Someone had righted it, Hux didn’t know when. Hux didn’t know _why_.

Rey, because that was her _name_ and if Hux was going to be fighting her off like he had Ren then he may as well call her what she was, addressed him carefully, “I really am sorry. I won’t do that again without your permission.”

“I don’t need help from the _force_ ,” Hux clarified, because it looked like the girl was about to insist. Dameron squeezed his shoulder, squatting down beside him and pressing the canteen back into his hands.

“I’ve got this, Rey. I think it’s just heat exhaustion – Also don’t think he’s much of a fan of the force,” Dameron’s hands were still on him, one on his shoulder, the other cradling his grip on the canteen, steadying it. Hux should slap his hands away, tell Dameron to fuck off, but something small and wretched inside him begged to let it be, to accept the help.

Rey cocked her head to the side and looked between the two of them, addressing Poe, “Alright, I’m going in with the evacuation crew and we need to finish prepping the boats. You’ll be okay?”

“Peachy, thanks Rey,” Dameron was all smiles. Hux closed his eyes.

He sat like that, with Dameron crouched at his side, drinking slow unsteady sips from a stranger’s canteen while the world around him spun out of his control.

Again, Hux felt compelled to tell Dameron to leave him be, to go away, that he didn’t need help. But the unfortunate truth was that Dameron provided an unusual sense of comfort. Hux was not used to the careful way in which Dameron treated him. The kindness he had thought was a weapon, before, in the bathroom, was proving to be the genuine nature of the man. And Hux, after weeks without meaningful human interaction, was weak to it.

Weak to Dameron, who had set the canteen aside to instead take Hux’s hand in his own, fingers smoothing over the leather of his gloved palm.

“What are you doing,” Hux breathed even as his heart bottomed out in his stomach.

Dameron stared into him, fingers finding a seam and following it around the swell of his thumb mound, “These gloves need to come off.”

“Absolutely not.” At least, not without a token of a fight.

“Do you trust me?” Dameron was earnest, and something inside Hux was telling him this had nothing to do with his gloves.

“No.” But that wasn’t entirely true, was it?

Dameron breathed out a laugh that sounded more like a sigh, “OK, I deserve that. But –“ and then Dameron’s thumb pushed up the fabric of Hux’s cuff, exposing the strip of his inner wrist between the edge of his dress shirt and glove. Dameron’s bare skinned thumb barely brushed over the delicate skin – Hux sucked in a breath. “You’re too hot, we gotta cool you down. And hands,” Again, Dameron touched his wrist, this time following the dip between his tendons, pushing down the leather edge enough to slide his thumb between the fleshy mounds of his palm, “Are one of the bodies heat regulating centers.”

Hux stared at Dameron, lost, “Why do you care?”

Dameron _laughed_ , and the sound raced through Hux, settling somewhere deep in his chest, “Just trying to help, Hugs.”

“It seems you’re trying to undress me,” the words only registered after Hux spoke them. He’d lost his mind, or at least his filter.

“Maybe,” Dameron played along, his eyes crinkling at the edges with his smile, “Just a little.”

When Dameron proceeded to take off his gloves, he did not protest. Even when his fingers lingered on the delicate skin of Hux's wrist, the blatant intimate touch giving him good reason to jerk away, he let it happen. He could not stop the force that was Poe Dameron just as he could not stop the Finalizer’s fall from the sky. There were worse fates than this slow gentle disarming of his defenses. And, Hux thought, if all this led to was his execution for crimes committed, at least he had this moment of strange human kindness.

In the back of his mind he heard his father’s berating words: _worthless disappointment_ – but Hux was too tired to fight that particular phantom. Not when he would soon be meeting the remnants of his former crew. They needed him strong, with his wits about him, able to advocate for their safety. After all, isn’t that why they came all this way, because they needed him?

Hux would rise to the occasion.

-

When the first refugees landed, Poe was shocked by what he saw. The only thing these people had in common with the First Order were their clothing, and even that was only an abstraction of what he remembered. These people were injured, many severely, and the evacuation team had prioritized their extraction so the med team could get them stabilized. Poe watched one by one as men and women were brought off the boat via stretcher, whoever could still walk being assisted by a Resistance team member. And it was _surreal_ , after all these years, to watch friend and enemy walk arm in arm.

Hux was there to meet every one of them. Poe watched him from a short distance. Admired the way he met each stretcher with a curt nod, a quick word of encouragement, sometimes a good-natured reprimand which Poe knew was to relieve the heaviness of the mood. Poe used these tactics to engage his men as well. People needed a leader, and a good leader knew what their people needed, when they needed it. While compared to the comradery of the Resistance it all still felt incredible cold, clinical, it was a reminder that beyond whatever side of the war they were on, these were still people, no different from him, or Rey, or Finn.

“So, General, what are we going to do with him?” Leia stood beside Poe, her small stature hiding a strength of character that had Poe wondering why she ever asked for his opinion.

“Well, he’s quite good at standing still for long periods so I was thinking coat rack, or human antennae,” Poe grinned down at Leia, happy to see her smirk back.

“He did not look so well earlier,” Leia’s eyes slipped away, settled on Hux again with an acute attention.

“No,” Poe paused, glanced over to Hux who was bent over a stretcher, hand on a woman’s shoulder as he spoke to her. A hand, or rather an arm raise in a weak salute, and Poe saw the blood-soaked stump and tourniquet that was a telltale sign of a hastily amputated limb. Hux’s head turned as he watched the woman be taken away, pale eyes catching the sunlight as he stared after her. He looked tired. He looked _alone_. Poe felt his stomach twist with the desire to go to him.

“- But?” Oh, Leia.

“Sorry, Princess, lost my train of thought,” Poe looked back to her, sheepish.

Leia grimaced at him, a smile playing at her lips, “You know I hate it when you call me that.”

They shared a moment of comfortable congeniality, both happy to have these moments back, moments where everything wasn’t so _dire_. Moments when the world could wait a while, when the fate of the galaxy didn’t depend solely on their ability to save it.

Poe sighed, dropping his head and giving is a weak shake, “He’s not well, Leia. But he has agreed to help.”

Their attention was drawn to Rey, who had just disembarked with the last of the injured evacuees and was speaking with Finn down on the beach. She looked tired, but thrummed with a haste of energy that seemed out of character. The situation onboard must not be good. Leia hummed in agreement, Poe wondered if she’d read his thoughts. “And his conditions?”

“Not many. Political amnesty for his crew and any other First Order that asks. He wants to spread the word, offer them a way out.” Poe thought it was a great idea, but he was not the New Republic government, and he left the politics to Leia.

“Reasonable enough, and you think he’s sincere? This is Starkiller we’re talking about,” Leia did not use the term lightly, she meant every ounce of implication the name suggested.

“I do. He didn’t have any demands for himself,” And it was as if Poe was realizing that for the first time. Hux had not made any requests regarding his own treatment. “Does the interim government still want to try him?”

Leia sighed, shook her head, “Honestly Poe they could not care less about the details of our dilemma. It’s as if the war is over and they just want to go back to how things were _before_.”

Poe rolled the idea around in his mind, _before_. He could hardly remember a _before_.

“But no. I don’t think they have any interest in him. And his demands are in line with what I myself would like. So, we can all breathe easy now that at least _we_ are in agreement.” Leia did let a sigh out then. They were all tired, even the strongest of them were ready for this to be over.

Rey approached them now, face unusually blank as she passed Hux and made her way to him and Leia.

Leia’s demeanor changed immediately, the easy comfortable motherly woman of before being replaced with a highly alert, highly dangerous tactician, “Rey, what is it.”

Rey’s breath was easy but her face broke down into something like pain, eyebrows drawn into a frown, like she might begin crying, “Leia, it’s Ben. He’s onboard.”

“ _What_ -“ Leia breathed. It was as if all the air had been swept from the surface of the planet. Ben Solo, _Kylo Ren_ , was alive.

Rey was shaking her head, “I couldn’t even feel him until I was on the ship. He’s weakened and in a meditative stasis. But spoke with me through the force. He was able to get off Exegol, jumped to the nearest First Order waypoint and came upon the Finalizer while it was fleeing in-fighting.”

Poe reached for Leia as she lifted a trembling hand to her head, eyes closed. He steadied her as she withdrew, searching the force for answers, “I can feel him too. He is faint, but he is _there_.”

Tears were gathering in Rey’s eyes now, threatening to spill down her cheeks dirty with sand and dried blood and ash, “Leia, he’s _alive_.” Poe stepped back as the two women embraced, the moment shared between them for a man that Poe only knew as his torturer.

Hux was not going to be pleased.

Poe wondered if he knew. Realized that of course he did not. Hux thought these people came here because of _him_. Poe had told him as much that morning. Had believed it himself. As it turns out, they were nothing but a ferry for Kylo Ren’s half dead corpse.

He wanted to go to him, be there for him when he found out.

He looked over to where Hux stood, golden red hair afire in the slow arch of the sun across the sky. Hux was watching them, keen to their conversation even though he was too far away to hear. Their eyes met over the embracing women, and Poe saw Hux falter, concern passing over his features as quickly as it melted away. He’d put his gloves back on. Poe wondered if he should go over and take them off again, force Hux to drink from his canteen, whatever excuse he could think of to touch him again.

Force, what a mess he’d become.

Rey did not stay long. Leia made her promise to be careful, to not trust that Ben was wholly their friend now, no matter the events on Exegol. The sentiment felt personal, that Leia, who was so good at seeding hope amongst her people, would hold it back when it came to her own son. _There is too much pain there._ Poe understood, had seen Leia in the aftermath of Han’s death. There were certain things people could not come back from, or so the world had tried to teach him.

Poe wasn’t so sure of that anymore. Who among them was not responsible for another person’s death? Intentions only mattered so much, and Poe sometimes thought it was worse when your own delusions and ego were what got a person killed. At least Ben knew the consequences of what he did. Hux too. They didn’t accidentally get their friends killed in some misguided attempt to prove themselves, theirs were acts of war.

Poe’s was a failure of his very character.

Hux was watching him again. Poe looked up at caught him staring, pale eyes holding his over the slope of Hux’s shoulder. The First Order uniform cut dark and sharp against the bright backdrop of the sky – the slim jacket cinched tight by a wide leather belt, the broadly tailored shoulder pads accentuating Hux’s slim waist and narrow hips, the bottom hem of the jacket barely brushed the very tops of his thighs, the single rear vent splitting just enough to suggest the swell of a small but perky butt beneath it. And those legs, those long, long legs…Poe’s eyes slid down Hux’s figure, indulging in the shape of him, laying this image over that of Hux this morning, wet and naked and so much smaller looking.

Failure of character indeed, what was _wrong_ with him?

Hux had cocked his head to the side, brows furrowed. Frustration. Confusion? Poe’s attraction to Hux was over stepping a line here, that much was obvious. But the first step to recovery was admitting you had a problem, and Poe very much had a problem with his very sudden, and very consuming attraction to Armitage Hux.

 _It’s not so sudden_. Poe considered the thought, remembering the teasing comms he would send Hux during their frequent squabbles, enjoying how quickly he could get a rise out of him even then - laughing as he imagined a blushing Hux front and center of his commanding officers as Poe hailed a _General Hugs_ and then played dumb to his responses. Poe remembered the look on Hux’s face, furious but terrified, when he had dragged him from the Steadfast. Remembered the way Hux had fought him before breaking down and clinging to his arms, face twisted in pain, as Poe tied off a makeshift tourniquet on his leg. Remembered how his lips parted and how his voice caught in a sharp gasp when Poe smeared cold bacta on the blackened blaster wound. Remembered the wild look in Hux’s eyes when Poe had clasped a hand to Hux’s neck and forced his chin up and told him in no uncertain words _thank you_.

_Thank you, Hux. You saved our lives._

So maybe Poe’s attraction to Hux was not such a sudden and surprising thing. Only, now it felt like it was something Poe could consider in a way that did not feel like he was betraying everyone he cared about. And Hux…

Well, there was only one way for him to find out how _Hux_ felt.

-

By the time the last of the Finalizer’s crew disembarked on the beach, the sun had crept far down towards the horizon line. Hux had stood there for hours, resolute in his decision to be the first face every crew member saw when they reached the shore. What he had not expected was to barely recognize most of the faces that passed by him. He supposed he must have realized before – after all, he had spent years with these people under his command – but every woman and man who walked by him suddenly looked incredibly, helplessly _young_.

Baby faced men who could barely grow a beard passed with haunted shadows under their eyes. Two young women clung to each other as they made their way up the beach, pausing to greet him with firm salutes. Sisters, Hux realized. _Triplets_ his mind supplied, and then the memories came flooding back. A rare phenomenon, born of a breeding program his father’s generation had spearheaded. Three identical sisters raised in the academy, ruthless and cunning and utterly perfect model soldiers. Hux had recruited them personally, offered them positions of authority upon the Finalizer weeks before their graduation. Now three were only two, and no one needed to ask the question to know what had happened. Hux saw the dried tracks on their soot covered faces, the tears they wept blown dry by the warm breeze and the hot sun. He tilted his head forward in acknowledgment, lifted his hand in a mirrored salute, remained calm and steady where they could not be.

The amount of loss apparent in the way these people held themselves together revealed more to Hux than just a crippled ship. These were the First Order’s best and brightest. He had hand chosen his entire command from the ranks of the Academy, and in them had been the future of the Order.

They had been left behind, forgotten.

Yes, the ship had been damaged after Crait, and Hux had been reassigned, but what logic was there is allowing the crew to hemorrhage and the ship to fester? Leadership failed these people. The _First Order_ had failed them. Now they came limping to enemy soil for help, following a man who was once their General and now a prisoner of war…Hux swallowed, resolved once again.

Hux refused to fail them.

He stood tall as the final ship pulled to shore. He’d been out on the sand for hours now, and there were several moments when the heat of the sun and the weight of what he saw were nearly too much. His body was at its limits, and he’d long ago sweat out whatever water he’d drank from Dameron’s canteen. Staring into the bright daylight had caused a throbbing headache to set in deep in his skull, which had not alleviated even with the creep of day into late afternoon. He needed to sit down, needed to eat something, needed to drink, but Hux would see this to the end. He had to.

Mitaka and the rest of the higher command would be aboard this ship, having overseen the full evacuation of the Finalizer had confirmed everyone had been accounted for. Hux peered down at the shoreline, the setting sun blowing the figures into obscurity, but he saw a flash of something metallic, a catch of red, a familiar shape. _Impossible._ Before he could think better of it, Hux was striding down the beach, his pace just short of a run, eyes squinting to see clearly. _It is not possible_. A figure emerged from the glare of the sun, tall, armored, _beautiful_.

 _Phasma_.

Hux stopped several yards short of the boat, panting from that small amount of exertion or from nerves, he was not sure. But there she stood, back turned to him as her attention was on the person who she was assisting up from the lower deck of the boat. She was unmasked, her blond hair gleaming like liquid gold in the sun. It was _her_.

“Phasma,” He breathed her name into the wind, to himself, not loud enough for her to hear.

But she turned anyway, blue eyes meeting his over the heads of the rest of the people on board the rescue boat, and she _grinned_.

“ _General Hux!_ ” She called to him, voice booming over the beach and causing a Resistance member at her side to flinch and duck away.

Hux wanted to run to her. Wanted to push all those people out of the way and grab his friend by the arms and shake the _kriff_ out of her. _Phasma was alive._ Instead Hux stood where he was as Phasma turned back to the person she was assisting. From the lower deck emerged first Thannison, followed by Lieutenant Mitaka. Adrenaline pulsed through Hux’s body as he watched the closest of his commanders disembark. Hux did not have friends, but these were people he trusted. These were people who came and went from his thoughts. These were people Hux was glad to see alive.

Dull footsteps pounded up the beach from behind him and Hux turned to see Dameron jog to an easy stop behind him, clouds of sand billowing around his feet, “Everything okay?”

Hux glared at Dameron, not caring to have his reunion spoiled by his strange presence, but he supposed he’d gone marching off without warning, and Dameron must have drawn the short straw today.

Dameron did not take long to notice what had drawn Hux’s attention, and he watched as Dameron drew to sharp attention, eyes widening just a fraction, “Is that _Phasma?_ ” And then, “Phasma is a _woman?_ ”

Hux did not allow his face to betray his emotions, instead he turned back toward the ship and was met with Phasma and Mitaka striding across the beach towards him. Suddenly, Hux was overwhelmed. These were his _people_ , and despite that they were here on Ajan Kloss, meeting on enemy soil, he suddenly felt so much less _alone_.

When Phasma reached him there was a moment when Hux almost lost control. He stepped forward, hands lifting but hesitating, then dropping again to fist at his sides. She was smiling at him, that same shit eating grin he remembered, and suddenly Hux wanted nothing more than to break down on that beach, to give into the weakness that used to be so much easier to keep at bay. _Phasma is alive_.

Instead he sealed the feelings away. He pressed his lips together and hid their trembling with a frown and reached behind to clasp his hands at the small of his back, straightening to his full height, “Captain Phasma, what a surprise.”

“It’s good to see you too, General,” She saluted, it was lazy, Hux didn’t care.

Mitaka looked uncomfortable, his face pinched but his eyes darted between the two of them, as if he expected them to hug or something equally embarrassing, “General, Sir, thank you for receiving us.”

Hux breathed, closing his eyes for a moment as he turned his full attention on his Lieutenant. He would deal with Phasma later. “Lieutenant, I expect you’ll have a good explanation as to why my ship is now sunk at the bottom of a lake?”

“Of course, Sir. Forgive me, I’ve a full report already prepared for you.” Mitaka looked white, the corner of Hux’s mouth twitched up.

“I’d expect nothing less,” Hux relaxed his posture, Phasma and Mitaka doing the same. He’d break down just a bit for Dopheld, he was more sensitive than most First Order officers. “You’ve done well, Lieutenant. This can’t have been an easy decision.”

Mitaka nodded his head in one sharp dip of affirmation. Hux had thought he’d looked nervous, but now he could tell he was exhausted. Dark circles ringed sunken eyes, and his uniform was in a state of disarray as badly as those of the severely injured. Phasma herself was not only without her helmet, but looked to be missing it completely. The unnatural disorder of his two most trusted commanders reminded Hux that they were not safe yet, that whatever their situation was before, they were now at the mercy of the Resistance. Any power that Hux possessed in the position would have to be wielded very carefully in order to protect these people.

Hux looked over his shoulder and saw that Dameron had backed off a respectable distance. He wondered at that unexpected show of trust. Wondered if it were just Dameron, or if the whole of the Resistance was reflected in his actions. Dameron was a General, after all, but the Resistance never seemed organized enough to put that much power in one man’s decision making ability. The reality, Hux expected, was that he was Leia’s man and had been tasked to shadow Hux through all of this, to ensure his cooperation.

Where they went from here, Hux did not know.

Turning back to Mitaka to ask him how they had found the Resistance’s base, Hux’s attention was instead drawn to a tall dark-cowled figure who had just disembarked from the boat with the assistance of Rey. Time slowed down, ticking to a monotonous drone. A rushing filled Hux’s headspace as he watched the lumbering figure step heavily through the sand.

_No._

Hux was frozen in place, his body remembering what his mind tried so hard to smother away. All the pain and fatigue and endless sleepless hours bubbling up from his subconscious and rooting him in place. _He’s dead. It’s not him._

But then the figure slowed to a stop. It lifted its head and it pushed back its cowl. And then it turned to match his stare.

It was Kylo Ren.

Kylo Ren was alive.

Hux could not move. He could not breathe. Ren’s empty black stare sucked him dry. Every nerve ending in his body flared up and then died. His body that had been so hot suddenly became numb, and then cold, and then a bone deep chill set in. He was going into shock, Hux absently realized from what felt like a distance, as his knees buckled and his vision tunneled.

The last thing he remembered was the feeling of arms surrounding him, of someone catching him before he could hit the ground. Then his world went black.


	2. Crash and Burn

Sometimes, Poe wonders what his life would have been like if he had never joined the Resistance. He remembers his life before: Poe Dameron, intergalactic spice smuggler, breaking the hearts of ladies and gentlemen at every port. It had been enough, for a while. But joining the New Republic as a pilot had been a lifelong dream and following in his mother’s footsteps felt like the natural path he should take. And it was there, in the New Republic’s fleet, that Poe found his wings, so to speak. He climbed the chain of command quickly, his skills as a pilot and his sense for people propelling him into the position of commander faster than any of his peers.

Then Leia had discovered him, and his joining the Resistance had felt like coming home. Poe loved these people. Loved what they stood for. Loved what they could accomplish together. Every person in the Resistance had a story, had a past and a history that was so different from one another. It was a melting pot of people who had come together for one goal: Defeat the First Order.

And now…

“Thank you all for your efforts this afternoon,” Leia stood at the head of her war council table, addressing who were to be the essential personnel for what she had started calling _Operation Kill ‘Em with Kindness_. “We have quite a bit of work ahead of us but what I saw on the beach today proves that we can rise to the challenge and find a way forward with our new comrades.”

The group that Leia had gathered consisted of her military commanders, including Poe, Finn, and Chewie, along with the civilian side of leadership: Kaydel Connix who had recently transitioned from the military arm to logistics operations, Rose Tico, lead engineer, and Harter Kalonia their lead physician, who had just left to head back to the med bay where she insisted she was needed more. And of course Rey, who was a whole unique category unto herself. Poe liked to think of her as their Kylo Ren wrangler, because so far she was the only one he would talk to.

“Lieutenant Connix has done a wonderful job arranging housing for our guests. Our current food stores will be able to feed us all for about two weeks, which is far too short a time in my opinion,” Leia’s eyes read from her datapad, the requisitions list having been compiled that afternoon.

“General, I’ve already been in touch with our supply chain, we will be able to transfer much of our stores here over the next week. With permission, I have plans to petition the New Republic for donations of food stuffs, clothing, toiletries, basically anything deemed essential.”

The conversation evolved from there, with Leia and Connix drilling down the details of how to house, cloth, feed, and maintain a population that had just doubled in size overnight. Poe kicked back in his chair, mind wandering to thoughts of Hux. He had left him in med bay, among a swarm of doctors and nurses and droids who were scrambling to triage the influx of patients. He'd also sent a message to BB-8 to find Hux, but he hadn’t gotten response back, and now Poe couldn’t help but wonder if Hux was okay, if he had received the treatment he needed. The image of Hux, gray and lifeless in his arms, kept fading in and out of his mind with the tide of his thoughts. Death could not have looked closer to how Hux appeared then: unseeing eyes hooded but not closed, mouth parted but breath so light it could be mistaken for a breeze. And Poe knew, when a panicked despair consumed him, and even more at the relief he felt when Hux had stirred in his arms, turning his head to rest against Poe’s bicep, mouth puffing out a gentle sigh before slipping back into a shallow unconsciousness, that his attraction was no small thing.

Poe swallowed the memory down, reassuring himself that Hux was _okay_.

And it wasn’t just Hux who Poe had seen exposed and defenseless. Every single person who came off of the Finalizer carried with them a weight of trauma, of defeat. And in that moment, Poe had witnessed men and women of the First Order who looked no different from their Resistance counterparts. There, stripped of their uniforms and worn raw by their journey to Ajan Kloss, it had been hard to view those people as the enemy. Granted, Poe had been on the other side of the scale once. His roguish smuggling days had left him with plenty of enemies in good people. He’d seen bad people do good things and vice versa. Poe knew that, in the end, people were people and whatever side of a political line you stood on was mostly just based on the cards life dealt you. These people - most had not chosen the First Order. It was where they had landed when fate threw them into the fray of life.

Leia had said something to him earlier along those lines, after he’d arrived back at base and seen Hux safely to the med bay. “What do you think brought them here?” She had asked Poe, and while his first thought had been Kylo Ren, he realized that these people had been in a dire position before their ship crossed paths with Ren, or Ben, or whatever they were calling him now. So he had said protection, food, shelter, medical care. But Leia had seen something different in them, “They came here to have another chance. They can make their own choices now, Poe. They can choose who they want to be.”

Leia had stopped calling them First Order then. She didn’t even call them refugees. She called them friends, comrades, and Poe understood completely why. This was a test, for the Resistance and the First Order. It was in the Galaxy’s best interest for everyone to make this work, and Leia was transitioning from General to diplomat as gracefully as she did anything she set her sights on.

And yet, while it was easy for people like Poe and Leia to look beyond a person’s actions and see hope, he knew they could not expect the whole of the New Republic to feel the same. The Resistance was in a position where they had seen war first hand, had lost people and killed people and in that, carried with themselves a tremendous burden of guilt that the average civilian would never know. Most of the New Republic had never been put in the position where they had to gamble the life of their friends, or take the life of an enemy. Poe was not sure they would understand forgiveness, or the desperate need these people had for a second chance…

And, Poe still wondered, how far was too far? Did these concepts apply to Hux, who had been responsible for the deaths of _so many_?

“Poe, you did well convincing General Hux to help us today. I still have my doubts regarding his loyalty to our cause, though.” Poe’s attention snapped to acute awareness, Leia was addressing him. “His cooperation is vital to this operation succeeding, without his perceived loyalty this could very quickly devolve into bloodshed.”

Poe still wasn’t exactly sure when or how Hux had become _his_ problem, but he had an idea of where this was headed. “Want me to keep my eye on him General?” He smirked, he couldn’t help it.

“Something tells me you’re the best man for the job,” Leia didn’t smile, at least, not with her mouth. Poe saw it in her eyes. He supposed he would always be easy to read. “You already seem to have a rapport with him, Poe. Pursue his cooperation in whatever way you see best, I have complete faith in you.”

“General, with all due respect, I don’t think depending on Hux’s cooperation is the safest strategy,” The frustration in Finn’s tone was laid bare. Poe knew he and Rose were not Hux’s biggest fans, and Poe had been aware of their quiet conversations, their constant proximity, throughout the day. “Rose and I have discussed between us what we believe is the best way to disarm tensions among the First Order and the Resistance.”

Leia leaned forward, that _sparkle_ in her eye, “Please, Finn, Rose, share your ideas with us.”

Rose and Finn exchanged a look. It wavered between them, this was something important to Finn. “We need to offer them a chance to return home if they want to. First Order territory or not. We can’t deny them, or they will see us as their jailers, just another regime that knows what’s best for them. Just another First Order,” Finn broke off, taking a breath, “For those that want it, we need to assist their return home. The Stormtroopers likely won’t know where their home is, but their families may still be out there, looking for them, hoping. We can help them try to track down their families. And if they do not have a home to return to, we need to give them a path to one with the New Republic. I believe these choices are essential to allowing them the agency to break away from First Order conditioning.”

“Finn, we are of like minds,” Leia breathed, smiling openly. “We will absolutely help these people reunite with their families, political affiliations aside.”

Chewie spoke up then, asking if that wasn’t the same as what the New Republic did with the Empire, when their remnants were allowed to survive in the Outer Rim?

Leia had an answer at the ready, and Poe realized she had decades of time to consider her response.

“The New Republic banished Imperial dissent to the Outer Rim and then chose to ignore them, assuming the lingering Imperials would burn themselves out surviving amongst themselves. They never even tried to plant a seed in those people, they squandered their opportunity to incite _change._ ” Leia burned with a fervent energy, Poe could feel it, and observing his friends he saw they felt it too. “We will plant that seed of change within these men and women. We will send them back out into the galaxy where that seed will root, germinate, and flower in worlds we could never otherwise reach.”

Rey spoke up, softly, “This is the only path forward.” Leia and her shared a look, something private, the energy between the two making Poe feel like he wasn’t even in the same room. “But what of Ben, what is his path forward.”

“That is up to him, is it not?” Leia spoke softly, tender, if not for her son then for the girl she viewed as a daughter.

“What if he wants to return home too?” Rey sounded almost broken, and suddenly, Poe was struck with the idea that this wasn’t Rey speaking, but Kylo Ren – Ben Solo.

“Then he would be welcome.” Leia stood, hands planted on the table and head hung low, obscuring her face.

“I think we know what roles we play, what responsibilities we have. You are all dismissed. Thank you for your service.”

-

When Hux had first come to, it had been while he was being laid out on a stretcher by none other than Poe Dameron. He remembered staring up at Dameron, trying to connect the dots of how he had gone from standing on the beach to being strapped to a gurney, and was left only with a vague shadow memory of arms circling around him. He’d passed out, that much was clear, and if the ache in his head was any indication, he was also suffering from a fever and dehydration. Heat stroke, it seemed, had finally caught up to him.

He knew that he’d been loaded into the back of a vehicle, he also knew that Dameon and Phasma both had escorted his transport. But for the life of him he could not remember the ride, at least not in images. His memories only existed as sensations: an iciness in his armpits and groin, a pleasantly weighted cold press against his forehead, the taste of salty sweetness in his mouth and a softness against his lips, fingers soothing through his hair, a voice, low and gentle, close to his ear. And a hand holding his own, bare of his glove. It was as if these were the only things his mind felt worth remembering, and it had held onto them, replaying them in strange echoes across his skin even now, hours later.

Hux laid on that same gurney, except now he was under bright florescent lights, and the soft gentle voice had been replaced with the loud murmur of a very busy med bay deep in triage. Curled up on his side with his arm pulled up as a pillow, he lingered in that space between sleeping and wakening. His mind was resurfacing but kept leaving his body behind, the weight of sleep pulling him back into a strange half-wake that felt as though his spirit was about to separate from the physical plane. Hux had only ever felt this way when he’d gone too many consecutive sleepless days high on stims. His body would always reach a point of shut down while his brain would be unable to turn off, and he would crash hard in his quarters, usually on top of his desk because getting in his bed felt like giving into defeat.

Now he had nowhere to be, no fires to put out, no mission to plan, no enemy to hunt, and in that vacancy of purpose Hux was still unable to let go and allow his body the rest it so desperately wanted. A guiltiness haunted him. That he should sleep now when his crew had come so far, suffered so much, felt like the ultimate indignity – a purely selfish indulgence that exposed him for the coward and failure he was. He had vowed to be strong for these people, hadn’t he? What would Brendol think now, seeing him like this. _Weak boy, why did I even bother. Should have killed your mother when I found out about you._

That woke Hux, just a little bit. Like waking from a nightmare that kept pulling you back under, the effort of pushing away his father’s voice always required a certain level of will-power that left Hux wired and on edge. In this case, it had him pushing his body up from its prone position and discovering that an IV had been inserted into his arm. How had he missed _that_.

“Hux, you’re awake?”

Hux nearly jumped, barely held himself steady, as Phasma’s voice broke through the drone of the med bay. There she was, sitting in one of what were many hard plastic chairs bolted to a cement block wall, his gurney having been rolled into a secluded cubby off the main breezeway. Across from them the med bay expanded into a large open space where rows of cots had been set up and filled with the injured. Hux’s eyes scanned their heads, trying to pick out their faces, but here, in this unfamiliar space and amongst unfamiliar people, his crew looked no different from anyone else on the base. Hux stared at them, shook his head once, twice and then looked again, but nothing had changed. The room was the same, the people just as familiar as they were strange, now as they had been then. _This is not right._

Disjointed memories came rushing to the surface. Phasma and the Finalizer _falling_ and Dameron's smile stretching _wide_ _wide wide_. Relief and unease warred for his attention and Hux felt his skin go hot and then cold, just like on the beach, and then waves of electrifying static crawled out of skin, creeping up his spine and collecting at the base of his skull.

“ _Hux_.” Phasma again, this time she was standing beside him, waving a hand in front of his face.

“I think I’ve suffered brain damage,” Hux slurred the words out, the gnawing panic swirling in his empty gut, rising to the surface.

Hux bent over the gurney and _vomited_.

Not much came up, but what did was putrid, thick and acidic. Body seizing, Hux gagged and coughed, dripping bile and saliva from his wide open mouth, gasping for breath between each convulsion. Phasma jumped away with a curse, and then from a great distance he heard her voice shouting for a medic. Unabated, Hux dry heaved up everything that might still be in his stomach and then some, like his body was trying to expel its very organs.

A medic appeared beside him, a woman in a white coat that Hux would not have recognized even if he had his wits about him. She was fiddling with his IV, injecting something into the line that hit his bloodstream faster than a Parnassos beetle’s poison. Like a man breaking the surface of water Hux sucked in a deep, bone rattling breath, adrenaline flooding his veins as the liquid drug worked its way through his heart and into his muscles. He was gripping the side of the gurney, arms shaking and head bowed, as his body fought to stay upright and not collapse over and onto the floor.

“How is that, better?” The medic had her hand on his shoulder, was drawing him upwards and back so he leaned against the raised head of the gurney. Someone must have moved it into an upright position. “There, that’s good. You must feel better, those are some high grade steroids.”

Hux swallowed, his dry throat catching, sore and slightly slimy from the stomach acid. A large cup with a wide straw was lifted to his lips and he was instructed to sip. It was a testament to how awful he felt that Hux obeyed without question.

Leaning back, Hux struggled to control his breath, calm his racing pulse. Closing his eyes, he counted down from ten and then back up, finally feeling the swimming in his head subside some. Opening his eyes once more, he found Phasma hovering beside the medic who was reading through a chart that hung off of the side of the head rail.

“I take it he just woke up? How long has he had a fever?”

“Yeah, he’s been in and out for about an hour. The fever has lasted around three. Is this normal?” Phasma, he kept having to remind himself, Phasma was here.

“I wouldn’t call it normal, but it’s not entirely unusual.” A device was pointed at his forehead, a red light blinking in and out of his field of vision along with a series of soft beeps. Hux recognized it as a thermometer, the medic was taking his temperature. “One oh two point one, that’s not so bad. Let him sip from that cup, slowly, until it’s empty. If he can keep that down then he’ll be fine with a little time. If he vomits again though we might have to run a brain scan, there could be cerebral swelling from the fever’s inflammation.”

“Run the scan,” Hux rasped, eyes sliding to the medic and observing her dark graying hair and small spectacles.

“Drink your electrolytes,” Her tone was firm, but kind, a lilt of amusement coloring her voice. “If you vomit again, we’ll run the scan then, no sooner. The radiation can exacerbate your fever and I don’t want to chance your body going into shock again without a good reason.”

Hux did his best to sneer, because _kriff_ his body, he was more worried about his _brain_.

“Just come find me if he gets worse, my name is Doctor Kalonia.” The medic had turned to Phasma, dismissing him. Hux bared his teeth.

Phasma met his eyes, lifted a brow at the twisted snarl marring his face, “He’s already looking more like himself, thanks doc. I’m Phasma,” Phasma said it as if introducing herself to a new friend. Of course she would take a liking to anyone who had the gumption to tell him what to do – Especially if it were a pretty woman.

“Thank you, Phasma. I’ll send a droid over to clean up the mess.”

Hux watched the doctor leave, though she didn’t get far before stopping beside another bed, assisting a medic that was checking vitals of a woman, a stromtrooper by the looks of her. Kalonia quickly chatted with that patient, too. Though she was close enough that Hux could hear the sound of her voice, she was too far for him to decipher the words, but it was that same lilting tone, laced with amusement. Hux recognized how she used it to placate her patients – If she was not so concerned then they should not be either, or some other psychoanalytical nonsense. But then Hux saw the expression of the trooper’s face, the heavy eyes, the relaxed face. He saw the way she laid back in her cot and nodded at the doctor with a small smile – Then he saw the stump arm, and suddenly he _remembered_.

A woman in a stretcher being carried across the beach, her arm, now a hastily amputated limb, lifted in a salute. Hux had spoken to her, reassured her then as doctor Kalonia did now. He did not know her name but he knew her designation. A sniper, first unit, one of their best. She would never shoot a rifle again. Hux turned away, heat filling his face as emotions caught up with him. Here he was, prone on a gurney from a little _heat stroke_ while his crew suffered actual physical losses, suffered from _death_. _Worthless brat, didn’t anyone ever teach you to be grateful?_

The touch of a straw to his lips drug Hux up out of his thoughts. Phasma. _Phasma._

“You heard the good doctor, drink.” Phasma held the cup up in one hand, steadied the straw in the other, and smiled when Hux took a sip.

While surrounded by so much death, here was Phasma, _alive_. The idea thrilled inside him, as if he were seeing her ghost, a phantom of a fever dream that had come to haunt him. She had been gone for over a _year_. He knew he should ask her what happened, how was she alive, where had she been. But right then, Hux didn’t have the strength, wouldn’t be able to maintain his composure. Phasma was alive, and for now, that was enough.

The straw slipped from his lips and Phasma moved the cup away, setting it aside on one of the plastic chairs. Then she was beside him again, hands braced on the thin mattress, her face peering into distance, searching the room, searching for something. Her armor was scratched, dented in places, the sheen worn thin and the metal pitted. It looked as if it had been through a firefight and then left out in the rain, uncared for in a way that was unlike the Phasma he knew, who took such _pride_ in that armor. It made Hux wonder, it unnerved him. _Phasma has changed._ The thought struck him cold, because if he could see that she had changed then certainly that meant _she_ could see that _he_ had changed too _._

“How did these people _win_?” Phasma finally wondered aloud, but Hux didn’t have the energy to educate her on things like _hope_ and _love_ and _indeterminable amounts of insanity_. Also, _Poe Dameron_ , who had single handedly proven that one man _could_ be an army unto himself. Instead, he closed his eyes, head tipped back to rest against the pillow behind him.

Time passed in silence. Phasma let him rest, only disturbing him to lift the straw to his mouth and insist he drink. Hux lost himself to his thoughts, forcing the fever to the back of his mind and running though the mental drills he used during his Academy days, the ones which occupied him during those endless days of marching and training and hiding from his father, who hunted him in the halls of the school as well as those of his mind. Eventually, he felt the panic of earlier subside, the ease of his thought patterns readjusting to normal, the fog over his memories lifting and revealing that he was here, on Ajan Kloss, on a Resistance base, joined by his former crew, and they were all _safe._

He opened his eyes and breathed in deep, letting the air out in a slow controlled exhale. _You're okay._ The voice in his mind sounded strangely like Dameron. Hux frowned to himself.

"Feeling better I see?" Phasma was beside him again with that stupid cup, she always had taken her orders seriously.

"Phasma, you look like the dead." He smiled, just a little, when she grinned at him. She shrugged an armored shoulder and forced him to drink again. Hux took the cup from her hands, he could take care of himself now, thank you.

"No better than you, General."

The obvious words were left unspoken by them both, because that was not the nature of their relationship. Regret and hope and loss were notions they had both expelled from their hearts ages ago, though Hux felt them now, swallowed them down and pushed them aside in a furious attempt to remain in control. He allowed himself a single fleeting thought, _I missed you_ , kept silent to himself, unspoken but heard, he suspected, in the way he and Phasma usually heard one another.

It was enough, for them both. Comfortable in their companionship, the two observed their situation from the quiet of their own minds, content to be together again, however the circumstances.

Eventually, Phasma pursed her lips, eyeing him in the way that meant she had something devious in mind. And then he watched as she fiddled with her armor, pulling something flat and smooth out of a hidden compartment and pressing it into his hands.

A First Order datapad.

“Phasma, you are truly a gift to the galaxy,” Hux breathed. The pad was small, black and slim, the newest model. His had been left behind on the Steadfast, lost now to stardust, but the familiar shape and weight of the device was a comfort to Hux. Activating the screen, he scanned the available services. FO net access was unavailable this far outside an active base station, and he would need an access code to connect to the Holonet over the Resistance’s signal. But, the datapad had uses other than net access, and Hux swiped through the nested file structures until he found the folder he was looking for: _Games and Leisure_. Buried amongst system files, the _Games and Leisure_ folder was something of an infamous joke amongst FO officers, an easter egg, if you will. If you could find the folder then it gave you access to a juvenile variety of card games, brain teasers, simulators, and Hux’s personal indulgence: _Force: The Card Game_.

The steroids and the electrolyte had helped clear his head, and Hux considered, then decided. He held up the datapad to Phasma, “Care for a game?”

Hux knew eventually they would have to talk about what _happened_. How did she survive the Supremacy? How did the First Order fall so quickly after he had been taken, kidnapped – _defected_ was the story he was going with but his circumstances had become so convoluted in the last day that he didn’t honestly know what to call his present situation anymore.

_Why was Kylo Ren on the Finalizer?_

The question that begged asking was the last thing Hux wanted to think about. So, he launched _Force_ and passed the datapad to Phasma so she could choose her deck and force affiliation.

“I’ll go easy on you, since, you know, the fever and possible brain damage.” Phasma lifted the pad so Hux could see she’d chosen from one of the pre-built standard decks available, rather than her master deck which consisted of cards won from other FO players over what were years of playing. Hux knew Phasma to be a more than casual player. She liked the tactics and strategy of the game, and she said she used it as an evaluation tool for her command promotions, which Hux thought was taking it a little _too_ seriously but he supposed the results spoke for themselves; Phasma had a track record of sniffing out the most skilled troopers from their ranks, those who on paper might have gone unnoticed. If she wanted to use a tactical card game sim to flush out talent, then Hux was not going to stop her.

So they played, and Hux fell into a calm tenor of which felt comfortable, like he and Phasma were back in the officer’s lounge on the Finalizer, relaxing during one of their increasingly scare periods of down time. He chose a droid deck which consisted of a small selection of card types that played off one another, without a particular affiliation to light or dark force and mostly utilized neutral energy sources. Hux knew Phasma preferred dark decks, her master deck was nearly pure dark force cards. Hux preferred the play style of droids, with maybe a smattering of dark side cards for their graveyard and deck search bonuses. Standard decks only allowed so much unpredictability during gameplay, but he and Phasma’s game lasted well over a standard hour, with Hux claiming victory only after Phasma’s final stand was thwarted when he pulled a dark side card that let him search his graveyard for his defeated commander. His victory had been sealed then.

“I swear you cheat,” Phasma reluctantly ended her turn and passed the datapad back to him, and he tapped his newly resurrected commander to give the final blow to Phasma force beast, effectively decimating the last of her army. The pad blinked in superfluous celebration, _VICTORY_ flashing across the screen in a crude animation, obnoxious but familiar and Hux smiled.

“Just like the good old days,” Hux held up the screen next to his face for Phasma to see the flashing _VICTORY_ paired with his grin. He loved to gloat, it made Phasma _so_ mad.

“You’re such a sore winner,” Phasma laughed, not mad in the least. Instead there was a softness in her eyes as they searched Hux’s face. He turned away, suddenly feeling exposed. “I’m glad we’re here together, Armitage.”

That struck something inside him, and just as quickly as Hux had decided to maintain his façade of defector for Phasma, he threw that decision to the ether, “What, here as prisoners of war?”

“Is that what we are?” Phasma did not say it accusingly, she was curious. Hux realized he had not addressed anything regarding their situation, about a plan the Resistance may have for them, about what had happened _before_ – the events that had landed him in the hands of the enemy. He was a traitor, and Phasma had not even asked him _why._

Memories of that morning surfaced: the guards escorting him from his jail cell, the meeting with Organa, the shower, the first he’d been allowed in weeks. But, also, his uniform returned washed and mended, the care Dameron showed him when trimming his hair, shaving his beard, giving him his canteen, caring for him on the transport. These diametrically opposed experiences left him fumbling to grasp the nature of his situation. He’d been left tetherless in a wind storm.

“I do not know.” Hux felt broken, like there was a hole inside him where the person he used to be once was. Whatever nausea their game had distracted him from was churning to life in his stomach once again.

Phasma was quiet, then pursed her lips and tilted her head to the side, “You know, up until a month ago I was stranded moonside, in the care of a New Republic colony of miners.” She met his eyes as she told Hux _her_ story, understanding he was not ready to share his. “I fled the Supremacy in an escape pod, but I was severely injured. The mining colony found me and cared for me. I was…not well. My injuries were severe, and I developed a blood infection. I should have died, but those miners went out of their way to help me. I survived, against all odds.”

Phasma paused, looking down at her lap, breathing deeply. Whatever she wanted to tell Hux was not coming easy. “I made a decision then, that I would abandon the First Order. I thought to myself, what would I have done if I found an escape pod containing an infamous enemy captain? Certainly I would not have helped them heal, and if I had, it would have been to turn them over for arrest and interrogation.”

Phasma looked back up, catching and holding his eyes. “Those people helped me from a place of kindness, for the sake that all life is precious. I could not have understood that concept before someone showed me firsthand what it meant. It put into perspective much of First Order doctrine, and exposed how much I didn’t realize felt fundamentally wrong.”

Hux’s chest seized, twisting tight and shortening his breath. What Phasma could put words to were ideas that Hux had been actively avoiding for the last few weeks…months? Maybe years if he were honest with himself. He always wanted to _change_ the First Order, mold it into what he imagined it could be, watch it evolve from the vision his father had helped shaped it into. But until Palpatine Hux had not realized how toxic its roots were. The failure of the First Order felt inevitable by that point. The poison was running its course and he would not have been able to stop it even if he had not been removed from his position of power.

Hux reached up, pressing his fingers to his lips to hide the way they trembled. He could not open his mouth to say what he wanted to Phasma, afraid of what else might come out, what truths about himself he might reveal. So instead he nodded his head in affirmation. He understood. He didn’t blame her. So how come he could not stop blaming himself?

“We’re survivors Hux, we’ll be okay, you’ll see.” Phasma's smile was tentative, as if she didn't quite believe it herself. Hope was such a strange and unnatural idea for them.

The quiet that followed Phasma's confession of defection was heavy with truth, with a confession that touched too deeply for him to admit. Phasma's honesty, her trust in him to divulge what would be seen as treason by any other First Order officer, was a complication of their relationship Hux was not ready to share, even if he commiserated with her experience. They had both abandoned the Order in different ways, but their paths had led them here together. Hux took a moment to try and imagine what Phasma's life might have been like had she stayed with the mining colony - would she have started a family? Become a mother, a miner herself? Every idea he came up with felt ridiculous, because Phasma was _Phasma_ and envisioning her in a capacity outside the First Order seemed impossible. But she must have seen something for herself in those people. A potential, possibilities. Hux didn't dare put himself in her place, he knew what he would see - or rather could not see.

Composing himself he eventually asked, “How did you end up back with the Finalizer?”

Phasma shrugged, lazy. “I had been monitoring the First Order's local channels from my datapad. When the Finalizer came into range I nearly cut comms, not wanting to be discovered, but on a whim I connected to the FO net and learned about your defection, and their's. I put a private message out to Mitaka. He picked me up from the moon colony,” Phasma paused, looked down at her hands – they were fisted in her lap, beguiling an emotion she didn’t show on her face. She relaxed them. “I only rejoined because I knew I could not stay on the colony, not when there were defectors who could use my help. I thought I could be useful, see them survive.”

“You were out, you could have disappeared, moved on.” His disbelief was plain. The idea was ludicrous to him, that any of them could disappear into the reaches of the galaxy, but fate had given Phasma that choice. That Phasma had then chosen to step right back into the fray to _help_ people seemed the most ludicrous of it all.

“I suppose so, but it didn’t feel right. It felt cowardly.” Phasma looked up at him, smiled. The irony not lost on either of them, “Command painted you as a traitor but those loyal to you saw it as a final stand against a corrupt leadership. You inspired Mitaka and our crew to leave.”

To hear it put to words by Phasma herself made him sound heroic, and Hux scoffed at the idea. His reasons were as personal as they were calculated, but Hux admitted to himself that even he hadn’t realized the extent the impact of his choices could have.

Phasma was watching him carefully, waiting, as if she expected him to have more to say. But Hux remained quiet, despite it. So she continued, “I’m sure we aren’t the only ones, there are others still out there, hiding, fighting.”

It was an idea that had already occurred to Hux and he knew it to be true, had offered the Resistance his cooperation in reaching out to those people. But Phasma was fishing for him to reveal a plan, as if he had predicated all his choices to bring them to this moment, here in the grip of the enemy. For all the information she gave him, she also expected him to have answers to her unspoken questions, to divulge in her some greater scheme. But Hux, for once, had none. He was as lost as she had been on that moon colony, presented with an opportunity to change her fortune, but in his case he was floundering at every moment just trying to make sure he had any choices at all to make. Up until that day he had been failing miserably.

Eventually, he asked the question that was most weighing on him. “How did you join with Kylo Ren?” He spoke the words carefully, as if by just saying his name he might summon the man’s presence. He had not revealed the extent of Ren’s abuse even to Phasma, though he knew she suspected.

She tried to meet his eyes but Hux looked away, didn't want her to see how talk of Ren affected him. "He was in bad shape when we discovered the distress signal from his ship. He was broadcasting on neutral lines, I’m sure he did not intend to be picked up by a First Order ship. There was no way for him to know if we were loyal to the Final Order.”

Phasma was careful to leave out why the Finalizer was answering neutral distress signals. Hux had his own idea of why. He would not put it past Ren to reach out through the force and manipulate his own rescuers into answering his signal, he would have been able to know they were traitors.

“He’s who gave us the location of the Resistance base, and at that point we knew our ion drives were crippled and we only had a few jumps left. It seemed Ajan Kloss was our best chance for help.”

“I was not made aware of his existence until he disembarked,” Hux swallowed, remembering the look Ren had given him across the sands of the beach. It had weighed between them, the façade of co-commanders stripped raw to expose years of animosity.

“Mitaka decided to not reveal his presence, he wanted to see how the Resistance would react to us alone. I suppose Ren could have reached out through the force, but he was injured, weak, maybe he couldn’t manage it. Whatever Ren’s motivation for giving us the coordinates, Mitaka was making his own call and wasn’t about to let Ren decide what was best for our men.”

Hux was again unconvinced, but he kept those thoughts to himself. Despite Ren’s motivation, it had brought Phasma to him, and of that he would count his blessings. Their conversation quieted after that, as Hux ruminated on everything Phasma had told him. He hadn't been sure, after his discovery of Kylo Ren, if the Finalizer had followed in his footsteps as Dameron had suggested or if Ren had been conducting the whole endeavor from the shadows. While he trusted Phasma, he also didn’t believe Ren would leave his fate entirely up to chance. That Ren might have wanted to return ‘home’ after his own traitorous actions against Palpatine made sense. Maybe he found his first opportunity with the Finalizer, or maybe he saw in it a chance to regain his place in the Order if he was not welcomed home, after all.

That Kylo Ren was alive and _here_ left Hux with that same bone deep unease he thought he had escaped. Despite Ren’s actions against Palpatine, Hux had actively tried to sabotage his power within the Order. Ren was not his ally then and he certainly was not one now, here, on the grounds of the Resistance led by Ren’s own mother. And if the Resistance welcomed Ren with open arms as Hux suspected they would, his opinion of Hux would outweigh any civility Hux’s spying ever afforded him. Hux’s good graces amongst the Resistance were quickly running thin, his purpose once again served and rendered moot.

A trill of beeps alerted Hux and Phasma to the presence of a droid – not a medical droid – but a curiously colored astromech that Hux belated recognized as Dameron’s BB unit. Hux blinked down at the droid as it rolled around at the base of his gurney. Its droidspeak was a hesitant hello. Obviously the droid was as confused as he was about why it was there.

“Did Dameron send you to find us?” Hux asked, and the BB unit happily answered _yes_.

“That’s Dameron’s Astromech?” Phasma questioned and Hux nodded in response. “He seems to have a vested interest in you, hmm?”

He knew what she was implying. And he felt himself blushing and wracking his brain for any moments Phasma might have borne witness to, anything that would incriminate him. _The transport ride_. Of course, she had been there the _entire time_.

“Phasma, don’t start.” Hux definitely didn’t want Phasma getting any ideas, she tended to meddle when she put her mind to something. “He’s only following orders, which I am sure are ‘keep Starkiller from getting any bright ideas’.”

“Is that what they call you?” Phasma's eyebrows were raised, grinning, “Brutal, I like it.”

Hux bristled, prickly with annoyance. “It would make my father proud, so I hate it. But it’s better than General Hugs -“

Phasma cut him off, “General _Hugs_? Now that is comedic _genius_.” Of course _she_ would think that.

“Don’t tell Dameron, that man doesn’t need any more strokes to his ego,” Hux sighed, imagining Dameron’s grinning face as his idiotic nickname caught on and spread to use across the galaxy. Forever being remembered as _General Hugs_ was almost a fate worse than public execution. But his astromech was a clever droid, and Hux had an idea. Reaching out to show it the datapad, he asked, “Can you connect us to the Holonet?”

The BB unit made a low whistling whoop, rolling back and tilting its body to and fro, it was unsure.

“Just read access, if you can – there’s no harm in that,” Hux didn’t actually expect the droid to agree, and it rolled around again, hesitant, until Phasma offered it a small glowing power cell.

The BB unit’s optical lens focused on the little bit of tech, and it creeped forward to run a scan on the hardware, recognizing what it was instantly: a portable recharge unit that Hux himself had designed. It stored enough energy to continuously power weapons for years, fuel a small sub light speed transport or fighter for several hundred miles, or recharge droids dozens of times over. The BB unit trilled with a question as it opened its tool bay and extended its plier grips.

Phasma held the power cell up just out of its reach, “Give us Holonet access and I’ll give you this power cell.”

The BB unit made a sad sound, as if it knew what it was doing was wrong, but turned to Hux despite what trouble it thought it might get into. He held the datapad out and the droid connected via the fireport, taking only a moment to connect the pad to the network and program it. When the droid was finished Hux swiped through the changes and viewed the access permissions. Read only access had been granted to the Holonet, with the rest of the local network permissions restricted. It would do.

“Thank you, that was very kind,” Hux pulled up the Holonet browser, visiting one of the First Order news sites he knew transmitted over the Holonet. It would be entirely propaganda but Hux knew how to pick out the threads of truth from even the best lies.

Phasma held the power cell out, as promised, and the droid snatched it out of her hands quick as lightening. Pulling the small device into its tool bay, Hux watched with curiosity as a zap of electrostatic energy rippled over the droid’s housing. The BB unit trilled with an excited sound, nearly bouncing in place. The power cell must provide a more refined energy source than what the unit got from the base’s charge stations.

“Be careful, you do not want to burn out your battery,” Hux admonished as the droid rolled around at Phasma’s feet, tool bay open as it swapped between various devices. When it pulled out its lighter and the flame engaged and shot up nearly a foot tall, the BB unit _squealed_.

“Do you think we made a mistake?” Phasma wondered aloud, both watching as the BB unit waved the flame around excitedly and then zipped off to maker knew where.

“Oh no, this is precisely what Dameron deserves,” Hux smiled, leaning back in his gurney and turning his attention back to the datapad.

Dameron could deal with the fallout of his over energized droid, Hux mused. He would sit back and enjoy the show.

-

The med bay was just as busy as when Poe left it, the only difference that the rows of beds were now filled with even more bandaged and bleeding patients than before. Poe wandered through the gurneys and the cots, looking for that familiar shade of golden red hair and becoming increasingly concerned when he did not find it. Among the chaos of the facility Poe wondered if Hux had been overlooked. Was he even a high enough medical priority to receive the care he needed? Was he okay? Had he died and his body been removed?

A distant panic rooted in Poe’s mind, and suddenly he felt sick with worry, with responsibility. He should have stayed with Hux and made sure he was stable before leaving med bay. He’d sent BB-8 in his stead, but he wasn’t sure if the droid was successful. Certainly BB-8 would have been useless in the case Hux was having a medical emergency, but Poe hoped it would have alerted him. Heat stroke could quickly become dangerous, but Hux had been mostly conscious by the time they made it to med bay so Poe thought he was past the worst of it. The forty-minute ride in the transport had felt harrowing, however. There had been no A/C, so all he had to bring down Hux's body temperature were the cold packs given to him by a med droid. He and Phasma had tucked them under Hux’s neck and in his armpits, in his groin, near all the major blood vessels, and hoped for the best. Poe spent the ride at Hux’s side, watching him struggle in fever, able to do nothing but murmur reassurances and hold his hand.

Phasma had spent the entire time watching Poe more than watching Hux. Every time he looked up he would find her staring at him, face serious and eyes sharp. She suspected something, and Poe could not blame her.

He wondered after them, did they have a history? Was it romance of friendship that set the lines of Phasma’s face into furrowed concern. Phasma wore her emotions openly on her face, unlike the rest of the First Order officers Poe had encountered that day (except maybe Mitaka, though he always looked scared). It was refreshing to Poe, even when those emotions were directed at _him_ for some reason, as if it was his fault Hux refused to keep his gloves off and insisted he stand under the blazing sun without respite all afternoon.

After escorting Phasma and Hux to med bay he'd left them there, trusting Phasma to see that Hux had received the treatment he needed. In that moment all he had wanted was to stay, but Leia had called him away and now he regretted that choice. What if the medics had ignored Phasma? What if they had kicked her out? What if someone with a grudge against Hux and had interfered with his treatment? Poe didn’t want to think the worst of his fellows but these weren’t your average First Order refugees, these were well-known and well-hated faces of the First Order command.

A familiar string of beeps arose over the rabble of voices and triage sounds, followed by a familiar shape weaving its way through the busy med bay, “BB-8!” Poe slipped past a nurse whose arms were filled fresh bandages and she shouted at him to watch where he was going. Waving a hasty apology, he met BB-8 in the middle of the main aisle that divided the stable patients from the unstable. “Hey BB, were you able to find Hugs?”

BB-8 whistled at him, and then rolled in the direction of the stabilized patients, asking Poe to follow. There were _so many_ injured. Men and women filled the beds in equal numbers, and while most were asleep or in an artificial recovery state, there were pockets of those who were awake and huddled together, and it was these people that watched him with a wary curiosity – Not hostile, but neither friendly. Poe tried to smile at them and be the reassuring confident commander he was, but it didn’t work. Instead, most turned away and hid their faces. A few saluted, and that was as awkward for Poe as it obviously was for them.

Following BB-8, the droid led him along the far wall and to the main atrium, to where the corridor connected triage to surgery. There, tucked into a cubby across the main aisle, were Phasma and Hux.

Poe released a deep sigh, relief loosening the hold his nerves had on his chest. Hux was _okay_.

The gurney they brought him here in was adjusted into an upright position and Hux was leaning back against it. His sleeve was rolled up and a bandage was on his arm where an IV had been inserted into his slender, fine boned forearm. His red hair fanned about his face in windswept disarray. It framed his high cheek bones in a way Poe found incredibly attractive, and though his face was pale and gaunt, there was a smile playing at his lips as he spoke with Phasma, an easiness in his posture Poe obsessed over, committed to memory. The curve of his neck, the gesture of a hand, the soft murmur of his voice…Poe was being taken out with the tide of his emotions, drowning in this version of Hux he wanted to experience for _himself_.

Poe took one step forward, then another, suddenly afraid to interrupt this moment – enter this place where he was an outsider, unwelcome.

Then he saw the datapad in Hux’s lap, and just as suddenly as Poe felt that swarming warmth, panic set back in. Hux wasn’t supposed to have access to a datapad, at least, he wasn’t _before_. Poe didn’t know what sort of restrictions were in place for him _now_ but he assumed they remained essentially the same-

“Don’t worry Dameron, we’ve only been given read permissions, we aren’t posting our location to the Order’s social boards,” Hux’s eyes hadn’t moved from the screen, but he lifted his voice, loud enough to let Poe know his presence had been noted.

Phasma _had_ lifted her head to _grin_ at him, or maybe she was baring her teeth? It was not friendly, whatever it was. Poe shifted his weight, thinking he should just leave. Phasma was _terrifying_. Maybe the Resistance had made a really _really_ big mistake…

“Uh, sure.“ But retreat just wasn’t in his vocabulary. Poe approached carefully, feeling his way with his words, “Where did the datapad come from?” He lifted his brows as BB-8 rolled right up to Phasma and opened its tool bay to extend its plier grips. Phasma reached into a pocket and pulled, well _something_ out and placed it into BB’s grip, it snatched it up fast and rolled up to Poe, _squealing_ at him. What the-

“I brought the datapad, your droid gave us Holonet access,” Phasma drawled, rolling another one of those small somethings between her fingers as she watched Poe. “These are First Order power cells, guess we make them a little better than the New Republic, your BB unit can’t get enough.”

“You’re getting my droid _high_ in exchange for access to the _Holonet_ ,” Poe couldn’t decide if he wanted to yell about it or laugh. “BB what are you thinking?”

BB-8 chirped sheepishly at him, tool bay opening up again as it offered the power cell to Poe. Curious, Poe bent down and peered at the device. About the size of his thumb, it glowed a feint blue and had a universal adaptor for BB’s battery charger. It was essentially a tiny mobile recharge unit, and Poe had never seen that kind of tech in such a compact design, “It’s so small, how many charges will he get from one cell?”

“Only about thirty for a BB unit, they’re very inefficient,” Hux swiped down on his pad, typing something into the search bar, “Our droids and energy weapons run off them, they’ll last for years in an electrostatic gun or riot baton.”

“This is First Order tech?” He was impressed, actually.

“That is _General Hux’s_ tech,” Phasma said this proudly, while Hux frowned, eyes still engrossed in whatever was on the datapad. He was blushing, just a little. Poe would have missed it if he hadn’t been looking for it, but there it was, a pink at the tips of his ears, a feint flush across his cheeks. From a compliment? From _praise_? Poe was staring at Hux now, a _want_ so deeply rooted in his very being nearly suffocating him. He wanted more of these small secrets, wanted to _know_ him, wanted to take Hux apart and discover what made him _him_. He wanted to fuck him, but at this point that almost felt like an afterthought.

 _They came here to have another chance._ Leia’s words resonated. Poe was going to make sure Hux got a second chance, he’d fight to the end to ensure it.

“Phasma, did you get a bunk assignment already or do you need me to look it up?” Most of the FO officer assignments had been divided among the requisitioned cargo holds of their larger grounded ships and the underground tunnel of bunkers beneath the base. The Resistance had wanted to keep some semblance of a command structure, mostly because they didn’t have the man power to enforce any sort of standard of policing. They hoped the presence of familiar commanders would keep everyone…well, in line? _This is a great experiment, Poe._ Leia would not get out of his head.

“I have, yes. General Hux has not, though,” Phasma was watching Poe closely, stare unwavering. Like on the transport, she watched him as if she _knew_.

It was Poe’s turn to flush, thankfully he was not as pale as Hux and he didn’t think either could notice, “He’s with me, we’ve got a lot of details to work out. You know, meal planning for two thousand, team building activities, maybe we’ll knock out the details for a beach week.” He always fell back on humor, it was easy, disarming in a good way. He hated tension, well, the awkward kind. “That is, if the doctor clears him to leave med bay.”

Truthfully, Kylo Ren was currently occupying the only prison cell they had, but Poe wasn’t about to tell Hux that. The Resistance had not planned on ever having a high profile prisoner, let alone two, at once. And it was _Leia_ who suggested he take Hux under his wing. They couldn’t leave him to his own devices, but they also couldn’t throw him back into a prison cell. _You already seem to have a rapport with him, Poe._ That was one way to put it, Poe hadn’t thought he was _that_ obvious.

Phasma was quiet, but raised an eyebrow. Poe wasn’t fooling anyone, apparently. Then, “He’s been cleared, you just missed Doc Kalonia.”

Poe shifted his weight again, bit his lip and smiled _that_ smile, the really good one he saved for those occasions when he needed to skip out fast, lest he get his face punched in.

Hux sighed while looking between the two of them and then turned the datapad’s screen off and held the device out to Phasma, “Phasma, I suppose this is good night.”

Phasma waved the datapad away, grinning, “You can keep it, I’ll just take Mitaka’s.”

Phasma had come to stand beside the gurney while Hux carefully placed his feet on the floor. She hovered over him, hands lifted away from her sides, following him as he moved. She was as ready for the worst as Poe had been on the beach when Hux had collapsed. These two were close in a way that maddened Poe, he _wanted_ – he wanted _so much_.

“We'll meet tomorrow, when you can?” Phasma reached out and tapped the datapad, “I want a rematch, you cheated.”

“It’s a computer game, you can’t _cheat_ ,” Hux demurred, turning towards Poe, side stepping around him to put Poe between him and Phasma. The effect was lost, because they were both _taller_ than him…

“That’s what you said last time, when we played Rhodian Dice,” Phasma crossed her arms over her chest, staring down her nose at Hux but it just looked like she was glaring at _Poe._ How had he gotten caught in the middle of this?

“Exploiting a bug isn’t the same as cheating,” Hux sounded salty, Poe wanted to scream _what the kriff is going on_.

“Actually that’s the definition of cheating,” And Poe was looking to BB-8 for help now, but he was too busy rolling around Phasma’s feet chirping brightly to notice Poe’s unfortunate position. “Fine fine, little droid, one more and that is _it_.”

Poe walked out of med bay suddenly feeling deeply in over his head. Hux followed a step behind him, just in sight of Poe’s peripheral vision. Poe kept him there, hyper aware of the way Hux moved, the length of his stride, the quality of his gait. Hux moved with a tightly controlled purpose which bespoke his military background – shoulders back, arms clasped behind him, head tilted ever so slightly forward as if he were watching the floor rather than where he was going. He didn’t _look_ like he was about to collapse. The steps he took were shortened, Poe suspected, Hux having to adjust his gait to match Poe's which was admittedly not as long and striding as he imagined Hux's was. The man was all long lean lines and Poe visualized what he must have looked like sweeping down the hall of a star destroyer, face in a snarl and barking orders at every crew member he passed. Now he looked distant, defeated. Poe ached with empathy.

BB-8 kept rolling ahead out of sight before doubling back to them, chirping sweetly to itself. Those power cells had really wound it up. Poe would have to get Rose to look at its circuit board and make sure they were safe for it to use. Not that he actually thought Hux would go out of his way to harm his droid. The thought caught Poe by surprise, wondered at the _trust_ it suggested. Only then, belatedly, did it occur to Poe that Hux was also following him without an explanation of where they were going. Again, Poe wondered at the trust displayed, as he slid his eyes to the side to observe Hux with a newfound curiosity.

As if reading his thoughts, “Where are we going?” Hux finally queried as Poe led him outside and into the cool night air. The med bay was located in an auxiliary building off of the general dorms, and they would have to walk around the perimeter to reach the officer’s housing unit in the main hub.

“To the main hub,” Poe gestured ahead. “Med bay is separate from the rest of the facilities, it’s faster to get around the base by walking the perimeter rather than through it.”

They passed by few Resistance members, the late hour and long day must have sent most to retire early. While Poe’s stint in the New Republic air force had given him only a taste of traditional military life, even Poe recognized that the Resistance operated less by military ideals and were something more like a large commune. The structure of command was loose, and people seemed to fill rolls based on need, not by skill. That there were not guard rotations patrolling the main corridors had even Poe wondering at their lax security. He’d have to address it with Finn tomorrow, create some sort of schedule for the guards, maybe even pair of a Resistance member with a First Order counterpart, get everyone involved and build some camaraderie.

When Poe reached his door he came to a quick stop, nerves suddenly high. He was so abrupt Hux almost walked into his back. The sound of Hux sucking in a breath lingered in Poe’s ears and he watched as Hux righted himself, back straight but breath frayed. Poe wondered if the medics had fed him, because his unsteadiness suggested they had not. He was still dressed in his uniform, even those infuriating gloves were back on his hands. Hux looked exhausted, his hair falling over his forehead, dark circles deepening under his eyes, and the drawn look in his face spoke as much to his need for sleep as it did to his dehydration.

But those were easy things for Poe to take care of. Turning to the door he pressed his hand to the lock, the hydraulic door sliding open. The lights flickered on, illuminating his living area. Poe turned to Hux to beckon him inside but the look on the man’s face stopped him short – it was wide-eyed, almost scared.

“Hux, you okay?” Poe stepped forward, placed a hand at his elbow in case he collapsed again, “Come on, let’s get you set up. I’m sure you’re exhausted -“

“What is this?” Hux stood his ground, refusing to enter the space. “Where is my cell?”

That stopped them both short, and they stood there in the hallway, staring at one another as each tried to parse what was happening.

“Dameron, are those _your_ living quarters?” Hux stared at Poe, the expression on his face plain for the first time, _disbelief_.

“OK, hey, so this _definitely_ isn’t how it seems,” The words flew out of Poe’s mouth, his hand coming up to push his hair out of his face. It was a nervous gesture, Poe wasn’t sure how to explain to Hux that _Hey, we’re roomies now, get hyped_. “We’re a little short on space, as you can imagine, and the bunker has been turned into dorms for the time being. They had to commandeer your, uh, jail cell? For Kylo Ren. Yeah.”

Hux stared at him, chose his words carefully. “When you said we would be together,” Hux shifted his weight, pursed his lips and then smoothed out his features. “This is not what I expected.”

“Would you rather be back in a cell?” Poe regretted the words, because they almost sounded like a threat, and that was not the impression Poe wanted Hux to have. As Hux eyed him he wondered how he ever thought this was a good idea. Bunking with the enemy? Maybe Hux would consider the jail cell as the more desirable option.

Hux _wasn’t_ the enemy, though? Not anymore – at least. He certainly didn’t _feel_ like it, even though Hux had killed _billions_ –

“You are serious,” Hux stated as much for himself as for Poe.

“Come in, please?” Poe stepped backwards into the room, standing in the frame so the door couldn’t close between them. Hux looked past him, took notice of the threadbare couch where his leather jacket was thrown over an arm, the old beat up leather trunk that served as his coffee table where a mini holo projector sat. The darkened windows overlooking the jungle beyond stretched up into a curved half-dome of a ceiling – the space was simple but it was _home_. Poe’s home, and he was opening up his space to Hux. It suddenly felt incredibly personal, intimate, and Poe understood Hux’s hesitation.

“This is – it’s just temporary. We’ll sort out your living arrangements, I promise.” Poe suddenly felt incredibly stupid, like a runaway train that had run off its tracks. He could fix this, he _would_ fix this.

Then Hux gave in. Poe saw it in his face first - the subtle change, the release of all those tense tiny muscles. For just a passing moment Hux looked scared, then his features returned to that same controlled apathy Poe recognized as Hux’s poker face. “You could have at least taken me out for a drink first.”

Poe was quiet, stared at Hux as he replayed the words in his head just to make sure he heard right. _Had he just..._ Then Poe started to laugh. The sound that came out of him was like warm honey. Poe laughed like a man who had nothing to lose, because he actually had _so much_ to lose _, so much_ worth protecting that sometimes it became overwhelming, and all he could do was laugh.

Just then, he'd thought he’d lost it _all_.

“You’re going to have to try harder than this Dameron,” Hux continued, he was _joking._ Poe could not stop grinning, the world felt like it had stopped turning.

“I wish -“ Poe coughed out, forcing a straight face, “I wish I knew you were funny before. You _never_ laughed at any of my jokes.”

“Jokes?” Hux paused, head tilted to the side, and Poe wondered if they were thinking of the same thing: all those impromptu communiques during their skirmishes, where Poe would tease Hux _relentlessly_ \- “I didn’t realize calling a person pale and skinny was supposed to be funny.”

Poe just _beamed_ , he knew he must have looked stupid, he knew how he got when he was infatuated. _You’re infatuated with the General of the First Order_. Maybe Leia had made a mistake putting him in charge of Hux…

Just as suddenly as Hux had begun joking with him he stopped, that weighted anxiety returning to his posture. Hux could not keep his guard down, it seemed. But Poe had seen a _glimpse_.

_I want to see more._

As if he heard his thoughts, Hux ducked his head, slipping by Poe and entering his living quarters. Poe saw the way his step faltered as he crossed the threshold, as if there were a disconnect between his body and brain, a stumble of his reflexes. A quiet whoop of concern from BB-8 made Poe look down, and he smiled at the astromech, wishing he could say something reassuring but finding himself at a loss for words. They entered the room and the door _shushed_ shut behind them, and Poe felt some of the tension leave his body. This was _home_.

Inside Hux stood idle, looking around with a blank expression, body taunt. Poe stepped up beside him and placed a hand on the small of his back, tentative, careful, waiting for Hux to react. When he did not draw away Poe counted his victories, however small they were. Hux allowed Poe to lead him to the couch and sit him down, where he proceeded to tip his head back against the wall and close his eyes. His throat was long and lean and Poe watched the bob of his adam's apple as he swallowed, the flex of his jaw, the rise and fall of his chest. Only after BB-8 bumped his leg did he realize we was staring, and Poe pushed his hair out of his face again, chewing his lip. He needed to get a hold of himself.

But first he needed to get Hux set up, because it looked like he was about to pass out on his couch.

“Just sit here, okay? I’m going to get some things ready for you.” Poe moved about his room tidying what he could. He grabbed his jacket and threw it into the bedroom, pushing BB-8 out before closing the door and hiding what Finn called his ‘hoarder’s nest’ from Hux’s view. Then he went into the fresher and poured Hux a glass of water, because you were supposed to serve guests drinks right? It was the polite thing to do. He wasn’t a savage, whatever Hux might think about the Resistance. Hux opened his eyes when Poe pressed the cool glass into his hand, he stared at it, uncomprehending –

“Don’t want any repeats of earlier,” Poe was all smiles, he couldn’t help it. Hux sipped the water carefully, watching him. “Did they feed you in med bay?”

“Just an IV, and some electrolyte drink.”

“That’s not – neither of those count as food,” Poe was horrified, he couldn’t tell if Hux was joking again or if he thought an IV counted as actual sustenance.

“They did not feed me,” Hux took mercy on him, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall again, cup of water sitting half full on the trunk.

Poe crossed the short breadth of space to what was his kitchen efficiency, pulling yesterday’s mess hall to-go container out of the refrigeration unit and peeling back the plastiwrap. Sniffing it quickly out of habit, he put it into the ion oven. Glancing over he saw Hux watching, an open look of distaste on his face.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to poison you,” Poe laughed.

Hux smoothed his features out, averting his eyes, “Perhaps not intentionally.”

“They’re just leftover dumplings, not more than a day old. They’re good, you’ll see.” The ion oven pinged loudly and Poe turned and pulled the container out, placing it on a plate and bringing it over to Hux along with a set of chopsticks.

He placed the plate on the coffee table and slid it closer to the couch, then handed Hux the chopsticks. Hux stared at the food, then licked his lips. The wrinkled little pockets of dough steamed on the plate, and Poe wondered what they fed Hux in the prison cell – he had a feeling it wasn’t anything close to a hot meal. Still, Hux was hesitating, so Poe encouraged him.

“Go ahead, eat what you want. I’ll put your room together.”

Poe left him alone then, the plate of food steaming on the trunk, chopsticks held loosely in his fingers. Hux looked lost sitting there on his couch, suddenly so small, like he would be swallowed whole by the soft cushion and lumpy pillows. _So strange_. Poe couldn’t help thinking. It was as if Hux was incapable of understanding someone could be kind or generous towards him. What had Hux experienced to leave his faith in the human condition so irrevocably tarnished? Poe wanted to _know_.

There was a sitting area off the main living space that Poe had been using for storage, but he figured Hux could use as a room. He’d sent a protocol droid over earlier to move out the contents, which were really just a handful of boxes full of sentimental stuff Poe had collected over the last few years during his time travelling with the Resistance, along with his father’s rifle case and some spare parts for BB-8. Now the room was empty except for a tatami mat and the floor futon the droid had left, a pillow, a spare blanket, and a space conditioner that could heat or cool the room (he’d insisted on that, after the whole heat stroke fiasco). The same half dome windows in the living space took up most of one wall in this room too, but there was a control unit mounted beside the door frame so Hux could dim the tint as he liked. Poe loved sunlight, lived in it, but Hux was acclimated to life aboard a starship, and the big windows didn’t offer a whole lot of privacy.

Not that he was worried about Hux’s privacy. In fact, maybe he needed extra observation? Poe considered the logistics of mounting a security cam, just for, you know, safety’s sake.

 _Force,_ he needed to reign it in.

Re-entering the living space, Poe saw Hux had set aside the plate of dumplings and was working on taking his boots off. Poe poked his head into the refresher to make sure the extra towels had been put there by the protocol droid and then met Hux at the couch, crouching down at his feet. The boots were no longer the polished leather of that morning. Sand and sun had worn most of their finish away, and Hux was working on wiggling one of his feet out from the heel grip without much success. Frustration was plain on his face, and he kept dropping his heel to the ground and rolling his ankle, as if the joint itself was giving him trouble. Poe took a moment to take in the turn of Hux’s mouth, the furrow in his brow, the flush of exertion on his face. Then he made his move.

“Need some help?” Poe smiled up at Hux, he hoped he looked charming because he might actually sound like a creep.

But Hux’s face hid whatever thoughts were in his head, so Poe was particularly surprised when he lifted his foot and placed it on Poe’s thigh. The movement was slow, careful, as if Hux were giving _Poe_ the opportunity to back out of his offer, as if it were Poe’s limits that were being pushed. _Oh, kriff, okay._ Poe could _not_ fuck this up.

“Guess these aren’t meant for field duty,” Poe placed his hands on Hux’s foot, one smoothing lightly down the tongue to rest on the upper vamp, the other curling loosely around the back heel. Poe watched Hux the entire time, looking for a sign of discomfort, a small part of him waiting for the man to maybe kick him in the teeth because if Poe were honest, of all the shit he dealt with today this was by far the most _surreal_ , and he’d brought it entirely upon himself.

But, though Hux was quiet and his expression closed off, his foot felt relaxed in Poe’s grip. Hux was _allowing_ Poe to do this. _Don’t fuck this up_ was the mantra going through Poe’s mind.

The boot reached up over Hux’s calf, stopping right below his knee, where the fabric of his pants tucked in under the leather. Poe pressed his luck, removing his hand from Hux’s heel to reach up and run it down along the back of his calf, as if he were getting a better grip. His eyes never left Hux’s face. Hux’s brow twitch down, so quick he almost missed it, and his lips parted, just barely. His chest was rising in slow but shallow breaths, and his eyes had dropped to watch Poe’s hands.

Poe looked down, feeling a blush creep up his chest. He wondered if Hux would notice. This was…a lot, for him and for Hux. They barely knew one another, but what they shared was rooted in a duality of extremes. Both generals on opposing sides of a galaxy wide conflict, a conflict that they were both born into, a conflict they inherited from their parent’s generation. They were like planets on the opposite ends of a shared orbit around the same sun, forever blinded to one another by circumstances larger than their lives alone.

Poe released a breath, it came out loud, the sound catching in the back of his throat. Hux was looking at _him_ now, a brush of something like concern softening his features, and then he opened his mouth – “Dameron-“

“ _Hux._ ” Poe dropped his head again, bit his lip, “Just- let me help, is that okay?”

A pause, just for a beat. “Yes,” It came out quiet, and the _look_ on Hux’s face was disarming, open in a way Poe had never seen before. _He’s gorgeous._

He would _not_ fuck this up.

Poe slid Hux’s boot off then. He took his time, revealing Hux’s leg inch by inch, cradling the heel in the palm of his hand as Hux’s foot slipped free, pushing the boot off to the side. One hand on his heel, one on his calf, Poe took a moment and breathed. He could hear the sound of Hux's breath above his, a little louder, a little faster, but still he allowed Poe to continue. The fabric of Hux’s pants was damp with sweat, wrinkled and pressed into hard ridges where the stiff wool had been warped into shapes. Poe massaged into the calf muscles there, his hand on Hux’s heel a firm pressure as he manipulated Hux’s leg further into his lap.

He was toeing a line here, and he waited for Hux to snap to reality and finally kick him in the teeth. Instead Hux had closed his eyes, head falling forward so his chin rested on his chest, breath catching as his hands squeezed into fists on his thighs.

“Ticklish?” Poe pushed a thumb up into the inner arch of Hux’s foot. Pressing deep with a firm pressure, fingers curving up over the top of his foot, he dragged his thumb along the arch and then into the space between the connecting muscles of his great and second toes, rolling small circles into the void there. The texture of his sock was thick and rough, wool like the rest of his uniform. No wonder Hux had passed out on the beach…

A sound emerged from Hux then, low and broken, and they both froze, staring at one another. Hux looked stricken - embarrassed - and Poe watched as he lifted his hand to press the back of his glove against his mouth. But still, his eyes remained on Poe. They were gray green, like the sea foam on Yavin-IV.

 _Okay, maybe this is too much_. Carefully, Poe placed Hux’s foot on the floor at the outside of his thigh, reaching for his other leg and guiding it onto his knee. He performed the same motions, more sure this time, but with no less care. This boot came off easier than the first. Poe placed it to the side and returned to Hux’s foot, with every intention of continuing with the massage, and he wondered if Hux would make _that_ _sound_ again. But Hux drew his legs up, knees bending into his chest as he swung his legs to the side and slid off the couch.

Poe froze as Hux settled onto the floor next to Poe, his hip touching Poe’s thigh, his knees drawn into his chest, his head hung forward so his hair hid his eyes. He was trembling. It was nearly imperceptible, but Poe was so attuned to Hux in that moment that he noticed it easily. He reached out-

“Don’t – Don’t touch me,” Hux’s voice cut through the silence and held Poe in place. _Fuck-_

“I’m okay,” Hux quickly added, voice soft but unbroken. He'd turned his head, just enough, to eye Poe over the line of his arm. He held Poe's gaze. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Poe’s mouth gaped, struggling to parse Hux’s words with his body language and finally putting it together, “Too much?”

Hux dropped his forehead to rest on his knees, but he nodded his head there, confirming what Poe suspected, while drawing away from him to internalize whatever was going through his mind. Poe swallowed, shifting his weight to stand, deciding to give Hux his space-

“Stay. Please.” Hux hadn’t lifted his head but he must have read Poe’s body language, felt the swift dilation of energy between them.

Hux was…there. And Hux wanted _him_ there, with him.

“Okay.” Poe relaxed, settling back into the easy kneel he had before. The quiet felt tense, but not in that bad way he hated. Hux was… _incredible_. Poe watched him, observed the way the man gathered into himself, weakness so exposed but shielded, as if this were a position Hux was familiar with, a place of comfort even though it looked so incredibly helpless. There was something important here, something Poe needed more of to puzzle together. But for now, he watched Hux breath. He watched the way his back rose and fell with those breaths, watched the way his slim body moved under the weft of his clothes, and he watched as Hux incrementally drew himself back together, putting whole the pieces Poe had pushed out of place, but not perfectly - not exactly how they were before.

Poe was suddenly overwhelmed with the gravity of what he'd chosen to pursue, what he was offering Hux, offering himself. 

When Hux reached out and took his hand, Poe understood it was as much for him as it was for Hux.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter killed me. I love parts and hate others. I apologize if some of Hux & Phasma's conversation felt like an info dump, I just needed to get some stuff cleared out so we can jump into the gritty good bits. Chapter three is complete and in editing and will be a more wild ride, I promise!
> 
> PS: Force is 100% a shameless rip off of Magic the Gathering :D
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading ♥


	3. Negotiations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Hux is in a bad way during a conversation with Phasma towards the second half of this and what could be considered suicidal thoughts are a part of it, not graphic, only suggested, but wanted to warn y’all.

Waking to the sensation of sunlight on his skin was something Hux remembered from his childhood. On the nights his mother worked late in the big house, she would bring him along. But there was nothing for a boy of his age to do while she toiled away in the kitchen, so she would send him on his way, up the servant’s staircase and into the hidden places behind the walls. Here he explored, found adventures with cave trolls in the storage cubbies, chased spiders through their sticky cobweb traps, and discovered his secret place in the vaulted beams of the attic. Brimming with treasures, the attic was his haven, a place filled with cabinets of silken fabrics, boxes of shiny metal baubles Hux likened to pirate treasure, and a staircase that spiraled _up,_ leading to a tiny nook at the top of the highest spire in the tallest tower of the sky castle in Armitage’s head.

It was here he would hoard his favorite discoveries: a blanket of the softest weave that smelled like cookies, a book of drawings featuring ancient creatures he couldn’t pronounce the names of, his favorite picture that of a giant ball of light filling the sky, the towering creatures silhouetted against the jungle backdrop of a lost planet, wonderstruck in a moment of awe. And then, of course, Millicent.

The little porcelain feline figurine was forever frozen in a sitting posture, tail curled round her dainty paws, one of which was lifted to her mouth so her tiny pink tongue could lick, what Armitage guessed, was milk from her claws. She was missing most of her orange paint and an ear was chipped, but Hux could tell she had been well loved once, and he was happy to take up the mantle of her former keeper. He knew her name was Millicent because someone had wrote it on the bottom of her bum, but he called her Millie, because they were friends.

“Millie,” he would breathe while under his blanket, the edges held down with boxes and the center slung over one of the low beams above his head, the triangle wedge open to the window that overlooked the grand home’s grounds, “Where do you think the stars go during the day?” Millicent would mew her response, which was always wherever the sun had gone during the night. And Armitage would fall asleep waiting to see if he could catch a glimpse of where that was.

When we would open his eyes it was always to the sun struggling to break through the morning rain clouds, filling the sky for fleeting moments at a time, her warm rays flickering kisses across his face, and Armitage would wrap himself in his blanket of cookies while Millicent would tell him he had _just missed it_.

Next time, Armitage promised himself, he would stay awake, and he wouldn’t miss out on a _thing_.

Hux had then spent his entire adult life chasing the stars across the sky, sucking suns dry of their light, and blackening silhouettes against the backdrop of a burning column of fire.

Turning away from the too bright sunlight that cast itself across his face, Hux frowned into his pillow. His body was tangled in a roughshod military issue blanket, now slightly damp with his sweat, his fever having broken over and over again during the course of the night. His mouth was parched and his back ached and his toes curled with the overwhelming urge to take a piss, but Hux wasn’t ready yet. He wasn’t ready to wake to this new reality, where the Finalizer was sunk at the bottom of an ancient lake, the First Order was scattered across the far reaches of the galaxy, and he was asleep in a futon on the floor of the enemy’s guest room.

 _Poe Dameron_ , his mind advised, _is not your enemy_.

Hux swallowed at the thought, suddenly _awake_ , more than ever before. _Poe Dameron is not my enemy_.

The memories of Dameron, on his knees at his feet, hands touching him in places no one had ever touched him before, caught Hux in a loop like a systems glitch. He couldn’t escape it. The sensations played over his skin and in his muscles, burned there by Dameron’s rough hands. Rough hands that Hux had spent all night imagining touching him in _other_ places, until he’d fallen asleep feverish and tangled in his clothing and blanket, unsatisfied on a physical level he never knew existed. Hux placed his hand over his mouth, fingertips soft against the even softer swell of his lips, as he _remembered_. Fantasies of Dameron’s mouth on his, opening him up and trapping Hux’s tongue in the cage of his teeth, those rough hands on his sides, sliding down, gentle where his mouth was not, calloused thumbs pushing at his waistband, pressing into the hollow of his hips-

Hux pushed himself up, hand over his face as he tore the blanket from his shaking body. _Dameron is not my enemy_.

So what _was_ he? What did he _want_ him to be?

 _What_ did Dameron want from _him?_

Hux looked up, stared into the sun barely breaching the top of the tree line, it’s bright rays spilling over the cloud capped mountains in the distance, and wondered where it was he went from here.

-

Poe was a morning person, always had been. Even during his spice runner days when he was up through all hours of the evening, greeting the dawn at the end of some heist with his friends, he could never go home and sleep. He’d lay awake while the sun crawled her way up the sky, the desire to get up and get going overwhelming any fatigue he should have felt, and he could do nothing but obey the demands of his nature. Now, as a general for the Resistance, the early schedule he kept provided him a few hours of down time alone, something he had never valued so much as a younger man, but which now felt like the most precious hours of his life. He enjoyed these quiet moments where it was just him and BB-8, his caf, and whatever space he happened to call home.

This morning was no different. He awoke early, while the sun was just barely breaking light across the sky, and _smiled_.

Today was going to be a good day, he could _feel_ it.

Caf in hand, Poe settled onto his couch in the same place Hux had sat last night. Poe imagined he could feel the shape of him in the cushions still, and he sank into them, closing his eyes and _remembering_. When Hux had slid from the couch to the floor Poe was convinced he had pushed him too far, that Hux was going to close him out, reject his advance and leave him to wallow in his mistake, but he’d surprised Poe. They’d sat there on the floor together, side by side, hand in hand. Poe had watched over Hux until his legs relaxed and his back straightened and he’d slipped his hand from Poe’s and _stared_ at him, before finally getting up. But there had been a moment, as Hux stood, where he’d looked down at Poe and then reached out, slowly, until his fingertips brushed Poe’s hair, just enough to right a curl that had fallen at an odd angle, before he turned to head to the fresher.

Poe had dwelt on that moment all night, laid awake replaying it, pressed his face into his pillow as he said to himself: _you are attracted to Armitage Hux, and Armitage Hux might be attracted to you._

Poe’s smile deepened, and though no one was looking, he hid it behind the curve of his cup.

A knock at the door interrupted his reverie.

Though Ajan Kloss had a longer day cycle than most planets he'd lived on, the Resistance kept standard hours and it was still early, too early for most of the base to be awake. Running through a list of people who could be calling him at this hour, he came up empty. Definitely it was not Finn, who was never up before ten if it could be helped, and BB-8 was off who knew where and would never knock regardless. That left Rey, but Poe suspected she was with Kylo Ren and not wandering the halls looking for him.

He opened his door and was met with a First Order protocol droid.

Curiously, the droid was less of a surprise than the trunk it was delivering: a sleek heavy gunmetal gray thing that looked more like a weapons cache than a trunk full of Hux’s personal affects, which was what it was. Poe knew, because there stamped into the very metal itself was the name Armitage B. Hux, and then a Lieutenant symbol embossed beside it.

Dive crews had spent the rest of the prior day and evening unloading the Finalizer of what was salvageable, and the trunk must have been recovered from the storage units for the officers. Poe imagined they’d be clearing the wreck for weeks to come, and that this trunk had been one of the first things recovered was peculiar. Even more, was that the trunk had made its way here, and not to some intake facility where the contents would be inspected and sorted.

Running his hand along the metal Poe guessed the reason behind that, the thing was seamless, sealed tight. Maybe they had given up trying to open it, or maybe the protocol droid was programmed to only deliver it to its rightful owner. Either way, Poe was _giddy_ with an excitement befit his smuggler past. Anything sealed this well held _the best_ stuff. Or a weapon. It could just be a bomb, this was Hux after all.

Poe considered waking Hux, but knew he needed to let him sleep. Instead, he sat back on his couch and went back to sipping his caf and made a mental list of all the potential things that might be locked in the trunk. At the top of that list was another uniform for Hux, because he’d already thrown his current one into the sonic and while it was…cleaner, clean enough for Poe, he had a feeling Hux held his clothing to a higher standard of fresh.

Also towards the top of the list were embarrassing holos of Hux when he was young, a childhood trinket that would reveal more about him than he would ever let on, a box full of holoporn because that _definitely_ seemed like something Hux would seal away tight for no other eyes to see, and of course an item of incredible monetary value, because no treasure chest was complete without the payout of cold hard credits.

By the time the door to Hux’s room shushed open, Poe was nearly salivating at the possibilities.

“Morning!” Poe said brightly, heedless of the bags under Hux’s eyes and the rumpled state of his underclothes. Poe had lent Hux a pair of pants and a t-shirt, both of which were ill-fitting. The shirt was too big and hung off his bony shoulders, and the pants were too short and cut off several inches above his ankles. Hux’s ankles were nearly as delicate as his wrists, and Poe was suddenly again struck with the memories of the previous night, when Poe had his hands all over those legs and Hux had _let him_.

Poe proceeded to devour Hux with his eyes, because though he had seen him naked, seeing him like _this_ – sleep mussed and grumpy – felt so much more _revealing_.

Hux moved like molasses, as if his body ached all over, unsurprising considering the events of the day past. Still, Poe admired the way Hux moved, the flex of his calf muscles, the wiry length of his pale arm, the spread of his bare toes on the tiled floor. There was a feint pink across his cheeks and nose that Poe belatedly realized was a sunburn, and had set upon Hux what was essentially a permanent blush. It looked _cute_ and Poe smiled at Hux with a bright and endearing affection of which Hux returned with a twisted sneer.

Passing beside him on his way to the refresher Poe could hear Hux mumbling something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like ‘ _of kriffing course he would be a morning person_ ’ before the fresher door closed behind him and Poe heard the sound of urine hitting the toilet bowl. Poe slipped to the edge of the couch, consciously keeping his leg from bouncing and restraining himself from pouring another cup of caf, he knew he’d already had enough.

The sound of running water alerted Poe to the fact that Hux was using the shower, and Poe grew all the more anxious. Hux had spent over thirty minutes showering yesterday and Poe was not sure he would last that long right now. Not when a literal chest full of treasure was sitting in the middle of his living room. Poe needed it _open_.

By the time Hux reemerged, fully dressed in his uniform from the previous day, Poe was brewing another pot of caf because he’d finished the first. “Do you like caf or tea?”

Hux looked up, struck surprised, at the question, “Excuse me?”

“Caf or tea? Or water? That’s all I’ve got at the moment.” Poe pulled open a drawer, shuffling through it to find where he’d stuffed his tea bags, but Hux interrupted him.

“Where the stars did this come from?”

Hux was standing over the chest, fingertips resting gently on top, sliding over the smooth metal as he stared down at the trunk as if he were seeing a ghost.

 _Oh_ this was going to be _good_.

“A droid dropped it off about an hour ago. We’ve got dive teams salvaging what they can from the Finalizer.” Poe couldn’t find his tea, so he poured Hux a cup of caf. “What’s inside?” Poe applauded himself at how casual he sounded.

Hux shot him a _look_ that said he wasn’t fooling anyone, “Wouldn’t you like to know Dameron.” But there was a smile there. Poe almost missed it, but the pull at the corner of his lips gave it all away. “It must be _killing_ you, not knowing.”

Everyone always told Poe he was easy to read, but it seemed Hux could literally see right through him. “You got me Hugs,” he laughed, “But let’s be honest, the thing looks like a weapons cache, I need to know what’s inside. Call it a professional interest.” 

“ A professional interest?” Poe felt the weight in Hux’s words. “So that is what this is?” Hux had not looked away, no, he was watching Poe more closely than ever.

As if Poe could hear the words Hux really wanted to say, he matched Hux’s stare, held it, “Well, maybe not entirely professional.”

A momentary quiet settled between them, pulsed with unspoken curiosity. Poe held steady, refused to be the first to back down, but like hell he would say more than he already had. Hux would come to the right conclusion, Poe _knew_ he would, _hoped_ he would – what he did with that information was up to him. Poe had pushed him far, the night before. Too much, too fast, and he’d known it at the time. He had been unable to resist. But Hux had not dismissed him, had not kicked him in the teeth and stabbed him with Poe’s own chopsticks. No, instead he’d _let Poe touch him_ – had felt comfortable telling him when it was too much – had wanted Poe to stay _after_.

So Poe counted his victories, however small, and had a feeling this would be how it was with Hux: A slow meandering dance through the complications of their history, with Poe guiding the way while Hux only had to choose to trust him, to follow his lead.

Hux hung his head then, gaze dropped down to his trunk while his fingertips dragged lightly across the engraved _H_ of his name. Whatever thoughts were in his head Poe could only guess, but he liked to think they were about him, about them, about what they could be if he only allowed it. _You can do this, Hux_. Poe kept his mouth shut. He would figure it out, Poe knew he would.

When Hux lifted his hand to tug his glove off, Poe inched forward, at the edge of his curiosity. Hux flexed his hand, then smoothed his fingertips together, wicking away the moisture that had gathered there. Then, he dropped his hand to the top of the trunk, pressing his palm over the Lieutenant emblem and the trunk _hissed_ as the lid slid back on hidden hinges, opening just enough that Hux could get his fingertips under the seam and pull it fully open.

In the ambient temperature of the room the cool air inside the trunk spilled over in a gentle mist. Poe almost laughed out loud. It was something straight out of a holo and he suddenly imagined that it were a person inside the trunk, kept in cryogenic stasis only to awake in a new and different world hundreds of years and millions of miles away from what they once knew. Or maybe it was the corpse of Hux’s own childhood, as if he’d shucked the mantle of his youth like a creature grown out of their exoskeleton, only kept around as proof that once, long ago, he’d been young and innocent. Poe shivered at the thought.

“Well, Dameron? Care to sate your curiosity?”

Hux was already pulling his glove back on when Poe approached. Stepping up to the trunk Poe peered down into it, nothing of immediate value standing out to him. The trunk must have been gravitationally secured because the contents had not moved from where Hux had once, long ago, placed them. There was indeed some clothing, none of which looked like a uniform, but rather training sweats that Poe hoped actually still fit Hux because that _would be_ helpful. Folded on top of the clothing was a carefully preserved piece of paper that struck Poe as oddly sentimental, even for Hux. Beside the clothing was a leather datapad case, and it was this that Hux reached for, picking up the device with such care that Poe’s attention was immediately drawn from the trunk and to the pad.

Poe watched as Hux smoothed his hand over the leather, face relaxed and consumed in thoughts Poe wanted to _know_. The leather was pristine, well cared for. Obviously whatever was stored on the datapad was something precious to Hux. Poe shifted his weight, restrained himself from asking, which turned out to be the right decision, because Hux flipped the protective cover back and activated the screen.

The First Order emblem flared to life, along with a battery symbol – it was nearly depleted – and Poe was surprised that it had activated at all.

“How is that not dead?” Poe _was_ curious, he didn’t think First Order tech was _that_ advanced. The datapad had obviously been in storage for many years.

“Remote charging, from this,” Hux pulled one of his recharge units from his pocket, showing Poe briefly before turning from him to take a seat on the couch. “Well, Dameron?”

 _Oh- kriff_ \- ”You’re gonna show me what’s on that thing?” It only took Poe a total of three steps to reach the couch and seat himself next to Hux. They were close, nearly touching, Poe’s greater weight dipping the cushion in his favor and he saw Hux shift just enough to keep him from sliding into Poe’s hip.

“I thought you needed to know, for your professional integrity?” Hux was teasing him, Poe delighted in the butterflies it alighted in his stomach. Hux was excited about whatever this datapad held, and for some reason he was excited to show it to _him_. Poe rifled through all the things it could be – weapons blueprints, plans for energy devices similar to the pocket charge unit, vintage holos the likes of which Poe knew were on his datapads from years younger – the list went on.

But as the device booted up and ran through the BIOS, binary strings flashing across the screen, Poe realized this was a programming codepad. Different from a normal datapads, codepads were used by engineers and designers alike in the building of complex computer systems and user interface modules. Whatever this held was something more complicated than Poe could guess.

When the home screen loaded, Hux navigated to a folder titled _Force_ and Poe felt his eyebrows raise when a _game_ launched. The title screen illuminated with a scene of deep space, stars fading in and out in a frame by frame rendition of twinkling, the words _FORCE_ fading into life overtop the starscape. Hux tapped the title and another screen loaded, this one offering a tutorial walk through, which Hux skipped to proceed to what, Poe gathered, was a selection screen for what appeared to be a card game.

“A _game_ Hux? That’s what’s got you so excited?” Poe kept the smile off his face but could not keep it from the inflection of his voice. He was surprised in a delighted sort of way. This was so left field of what he imagined that he couldn’t help but look at Hux, look for some remnant of something that would have suggested a game sim was important to him.

“Not just a game, a game I designed.” Hux had not moved past the selection screen, instead he set the pad in his lap, hands resting on his thighs of either side of it. A _game_. Hux had designed a _game?_

Poe wanted to make a joke, gently tease out from Hux an explanation of _why_ , but something stopped him, something that said not to put Hux on the spot like that, not right then. Instead he let his eyebrow creep up and gave Hux a look that said he didn't quite believe what he was hearing.

“Don’t look so surprised Dameron, I can have _fun_.” Hux said fun as if it were the most detestable word he had ever uttered.

“Oh yeah? I’ll be the judge of fun." Then he dropped his voice, just by an octave. "Show me how to play your game, Hux.” The smirk was slow to bloom but as he held Hux’s eyes he saw the words hit home. There was a blush across Hux’s nose that deepened the pink of his sunburn.

“You’re incorrigible.” Hux’s face twisted with what Poe hoped was _mock_ affront, then softened as he said, “I’ll teach you.”

 _Force_ , as it was, turned out to be far more strategic than what Poe would describe as _fun_. But the mechanics were sharp, quick and endlessly complicated, and the design was charming in a way that baffled Poe. That Hux had designed a game sim was strange enough, that Hux had included such things as crude animations, cheeky phrases like _TWARTED, DODGED, CRITICAL HIT,_ and _THE END IS NIGH_ , and an obnoxious _VICTORY_ screen literally had Poe looking at Hux as if everything he thought he knew about the man had been rewritten in the span of a barely begun morning.

And Hux was _invested_ in this game. The way he described the gameplay, diving deep into the strategic advantage each affiliation had over another, how mixing card types could make or break a deck, how something as simple as what order of cards you played on your first turn could impact the game for dozens of rounds ahead, it left Poe reeling with amusement. When Hux went on a tangent about the mechanics of the droid deck and how _everyone underestimates droids in favor of force cards_ and then continued to tell Poe precisely _why_ they were making such an _unforgivable tactical mistake_ , Poe felt a smile splitting his face from ear to ear.

“Hux,” he jumped at a lull in Hux’s speech about Light versus Dark and how creating a balanced deck between the two was more difficult than just committing to one side, “Let’s play, yeah? I’m a hands on learner, but I think I’ve got this.”

Hux’s mouth had snapped shut, and he was looking at Poe as if he just realized he’d been speaking non-stop for the last hour. He swallowed, shifted his weight, moved his eyes to stare at something over Poe’s shoulder. The pieces were being put back into place, whatever guard Hux had let down rising again, higher than before. But, Poe had seen a glimpse – more than a glimpse – he’d seen the man beneath Hux. _Armitage_. He’d seen _Armitage_.

The game they played was short lived. Hux took no mercy on Poe. He destroyed his army of light force creatures with a swift calculated efficiency, countering every move Poe made without pause. By the end of their twenty standard minute affair, Poe’s deck was mostly a graveyard of cards with a smattering of high level creatures and starships in his hand he didn’t have enough energy sources to put into play. Hux ended the game with an overzealous attack that included every creature card he had in play that seemed oddly out of character, taking Poe’s life points deep into the negative. As the numbers counted down to Poe’s defeat, _VICTORY_ flashed across the screen in that same obnoxious way he had observed earlier. Where Poe expected Hux to relish in his defeat, he instead stared down at the flashing screen, eyes distant, lips pressed together.

“Seems I need some practice,” Poe laughed, trying to break this strange tension, unable to get a read on Hux’s thoughts as he sat there and let an opportunity to gloat pass him by. “But you’re right, that was a lot of fun.”

Hux was entirely silent, and for a moment Poe thought he had said something wrong, offended Hux with an unknown slight. But then Hux spoke up, slow and careful. “I can put it on your datapad,” the offer came quiet, spoken over the hum of the environmental conditioning unit kicking on. Poe almost didn’t hear him.

“Yeah, you can do that?”

“Now that I have this codepad, yes.” Hux exited the game screen, tapping through the files folders until he reached a package of what were program files that Poe only recognized from the few times he had gone into BB-8’s programming to sniff out a bug. “Only if you want it. Don’t feel obligated Dameron, it’s just a game.”

Like _kriff_ this was just a _game_.

Poe didn’t hesitate. He retrieved his datapad from his bedroom and handed it to Hux without a second thought. That the man’s programming skills also afforded him the ability to hack into Poe’s pad and steal Resistance secrets he didn’t even know were hidden there was only a fleeting thought in the back of his mind. _This_ was important to Hux, and that meant it was important to Poe too. He watched as Hux transferred the files and pulled up the terminal window, executing a line of code that installed _Force_ into the system, then proceeded to create an icon on his _Home_ screen.

“Thanks Hux, do you care if I show my friends how to play?” He thumbed open the game, saw an account creation option along with local and network play options. He’d figure that stuff out later, maybe see if Finn was familiar with the game. Maybe he could teach him some strategy he could use to impress Hux.

Hux was watching him carefully now, codepad set aside and his cold caf in his hands instead. “You may show them, but leave out that I designed it, please. Not even the First Order knows where the game came from.”

 _That_ was almost as curious as the fact that Hux had designed the game at all – but Poe heard something in Hux’s words, an unspoken admission that was still, all this time later, shameful with pain. “Everyone in the First Order knows about _Force_?”

“I can’t say everyone, but the clever ones would have found it on their datapads, yes. It was quite popular on the Finalizer in any case, even Phasma plays.”

Poe tried to imagine it: the whole of the Finalizer engaged in an ongoing _Force_ competition, challenging one another to battles during whatever free time they were given. Collecting and trading and winning cards from one another with ever increasing stakes. It was wild, that Hux had gone ahead and included the game with the critical system files on every FO datapad, and then kept its existence a secret – kept its _creator_ a secret. But, he supposed it wouldn’t look that great if their fearsome General had designed a charmingly cheesy, incredibly complicated game sim.

“Your secrets are safe with me,” Poe promised.

Yes, because Poe was keeping this version of Hux for himself.

-

The last place Hux had ever envisioned himself was seated at the war table of the Resistance, General Organa across from him in some affectation of friendly co-command.

Sitting upon Snoke’s throne, ruling as Supreme Leader over the First Order? All the time. Drowning to death in the Arkanis rain after being dumped into an open grave dug by one of his father’s few remaining supporters? Frequently enough. Bleeding out over a control console as Ren stormed through his ship, ripping the thing apart before his very eyes while waxing on about Mommy and Daddy not loving him enough? Too often to admit.

But here he was, sitting at this table for the second time in almost twenty-four standard hours. The message had come over Dameron’s datapad shortly after he’d loaded _Force_ onto it. Dameron had shrugged at Hux when he asked him what Leia wanted to discuss, “She probably just wants to talk about your crew, get a feel of how you think we should proceed with them.”

How wrong Dameron had been.

“General Hux, I’m glad to see you well.” Organa was all business, and for that Hux was grateful. He was not sure if he could stomach anything else from the woman. Not with their history. It would be insulting to the both of them. “Your help yesterday was invaluable, but I fear we have left out some details as to our agreement.”

Dameron sat beside him, all easy swaggers even seated in a chair. He’d leaned back on the things wheels, balancing precariously on the edge of falling over himself. Hux resisted the urge to reach out and give him just a tiny _push_.

Instead, he nodded at Organa, walking his own line between subservient and commanding. He refused to call her general, instead opting for Princess, which he could tell affected the woman the way he intended, considering she could not technically correct him – “I agree, Princess. We have much to discuss regarding my crew.”

“Oh, I’m not so sure we do. You will be happy to know that, while you were incapacitated yesterday, my men and women were able to arrange most of the particulars regarding housing and feeding our new friends in common.” Leia leaned forward, hands folded neatly atop of the table. “What I am most concerned with is _you_. Hux. Whatever are we going to do with you?”

He was…not expecting this, “I’m not sure I follow, Princess.”

“Of course not. You are far too magnanimous to be thinking of yourself in this moment,” Leia smiled at him, and Hux suddenly understood where Ren got it, his ability to switch moods on a dime, turn the tables against you faster than you could blink. “What do you want out of this Hux, for your cooperation. I think you will find I am in a generous mood, so please humor me and be honest.”

He didn’t- neither him nor Dameron had expected _this_ when he said Organa wanted to meet with him. He knew a conversation with the woman was inevitable, but not this one, and not in so cavalier a manner. Hux glanced over at Poe, who seemed just as shocked as he was. Their eyes met for a brief moment, but Hux couldn’t read the man, or maybe he could, but didn’t like what he found there.

“General, I’m to understand that Dameron passed on my requests yesterday.” Hux licked his lips, carefully placing his hands to rest flat on the table. The change in title along with the act of revealing he was unarmed were both precognitive reflexes borne from the way he’d learn to deal with Ren, when he was in one of _those_ moods.

“He did, but you only asked for the fair treatment of your crew, their acceptance into the New Republic, and the chance to reach out to the rest of the First Order and offer them the same opportunity.” Organa did not blink, as if she were staring straight into him, but neither did he feel the brush of her Force. It would have been at this point that Ren dug into his brain, threw him into the ceiling, tossed him across the bridge, choked him within a thread of his life.

“I-“ Hux trailed off, honestly taken aback by Organa’s question. What _did_ he want for himself? He’d been dwelling on the idea all morning, and he still didn’t have an answer. The fabric of his life had unraveled so completely that there were more loose threads than weave, and Hux didn’t know where to begin putting it back together. “I suppose I’d like to be able to interact with my crew. I’d like free roam planetside to go where I please. Unrestricted Holonet access…” Hux trailed off again. He sounded like a _child._ _Please daddy, can I go outside and play?_

But whatever he said seemed to please Organa. She visibly softened at his requests, “The freedom to interact with your crew is pivotal to our arrangement working, so that is not a problem. The ability to roam the base at your leisure is also not a problem, but if you wish to travel beyond and explore Ajan Kloss you will need to be joined by a Resistance member. I am sure Poe would be happy to escort you. As far as Holonet access goes, that is more complicated, for security reasons, but I don’t see why we can’t consider getting you a restricted datapad at some point in the future. Perhaps in exchange for access to First Order net.”

Hux shook his head, “Order net is down, the Finalizer’s base station is not receiving a signal.”

Organa narrowed her eyes at that, connecting the dots as fast as Hux realized his slip up, “Someone gave you an Order datapad?”

“Captain Phasma,” Hux reached up to the hidden pocket in his jacket, then paused, because it could be mistaken for reaching for a weapon. “I have her datapad, Dameron’s BB unit gave it access to the Holonet. Read permissions only. I’ll show you, if I may.”

Organa nodded at him and he reached into his jacket to pull out the datapad, placing it on the table beside him for the protocol droid who had approached. The droid took the pad and walked it over to Organa. The black datapad looked large in her hands, and Hux was struck by how small this woman was. He wondered if Kylo Ren came out full sized kicking and screaming like the overgrown man child he was. _I wonder if she has spoken with Ren yet?_ He was unsure why that thought crossed his mind.

“This is fine tech, General Hux. BB-8 also showed me one of the power cells you gave it,” Organa handed the pad back to the droid with a nod, satisfied with whatever she saw there. The droid walked back over and placed the datapad on the table beside Hux. “I believe there is more you can offer us Hux, and more we can offer you. I do feel it is important to let you know that, with the current political climate, the New Republic’s interim government has left your fate to us. They have no intentions of pressing charges against you for war crimes committed. I don’t believe I need to stress how _lucky_ you are, do I?”

“No, General,” Hux wasn’t sure he was lucky. He had killed billions, split families, severed business alliances. If the New Republic wouldn’t try him in court, then some individual was bound to take matters into their own hands

“Leia-“ Dameron plopped his chair down fully onto the floor, the sound loud and grating as the wheels squeaked and the frame groaned. He leaned forward over the table, eyes earnest. “ _We_ have no intentions of pressing charges either.”

The stare Organa levered on Dameron was cold, he’d crossed a line with her. Not that Dameron _cared_. “No, General Dameron, not as it stands.” Dameron turned to Hux, that infuriating smile back in place, but Hux felt the cold washing through the room. Maybe it was his experience with Ren, but Hux could _feel_ the woman across the table observe them. Perhaps her force touch was more delicate than he believed, but Hux shivered with the sensation of someone looking through him and seeing every secret he had to hide.

“While I believe a military tribunal would provide fairer justice than a public civilian jury, at this point the only justice to be served tastes far too much like revenge for me. Closure for the surviving families of the Hosnian system will not be found in the death of one man,” Organa paused, and Hux tore his eyes from Dameron’s indulgent smile, which seemed to be what she was waiting for.

“General Hux, you have shown me that you _do_ possess the ability to care for the lives of others, and in some capacity place those lives above your own. And while your direct actions with regards to Starkiller Base resulted in death of an unimaginable magnitude, and ended our cold war and launched us into a full-scale military engagement, I believe every person at this table has taken at least one life in the name of that conflict. I am not about to start handing out death sentences unless my hand is forced.”

Because that would mean Kylo Ren would also have to be held accountable, and what would Organa do _then_.

Regardless, Hux understood the meaning of her words. If he co-operated, he might be able to walk away from this a living man. Organa would field the New Republic’s interim government while he dismantled the Order from the inside out. Likely, this would be his only chance. Organa would only protect him for so long.

Hux left the war room feeling like he would have rather been told he was headed to Coruscant for a trial.

Dameron kept pace beside him, hands in his pockets, his gait loose and at ease. “That went well, I’d say. Sorry for not warning you, I assumed she meant to talk about the arrangements for your crew.”

“She reminds me of Kylo Ren,” The words spilled out of Hux faster than he could stop them, and he saw the way Dameron looked at him, as if he had sprouted a second head.

“Really? I don’t see it.” Of course he wouldn’t, Dameron was enamored with her, that much was obvious.

“It’s in the way they can both command a room. Ren must have learned it from her.” Hux sighed, stopping at the cross section of the base that led to the mess hall and stepping off to the side. A pair of Resistance members were staring at him and Dameron, caught between shock and curiosity. Hux supposed the two of them strolling the base together must make for a strange sight. “Have you heard anything about him, about Ren?”

Dameron leaned against the wall beside Hux, his wider bulk shielding them from the prying eyes across the opposite side of the corridor, “Just that Rey is with him. I guess he’s in a bad way, with the force, whatever that means. She’s trying to help.”

So that meant Kylo Ren wouldn’t be wandering the base any time soon. Hux felt the tension in his body release, just a little.

“Hey, listen, I have some stuff I gotta take care of – you know how it is being a General and all that, no one can get on without us.” Dameron spewed words like a Wookie spewed threats. “I’ll only be a couple hours, so you’re free to do, well, whatever I guess. What will you do?”

Hux bristled at the question, as if he had to _report_ to Dameron of all people, but then he realized he was only curious; The question was completely innocent. “Phasma sent me a message, I’m supposed to meet her for lunch if I’m free.”

The quiet that fell between them was not the same easy quiet Hux was growing used to with Dameron. A weight hung between them, and then Hux realized his slip for the second time. _Damn._ His fathers voice filled his head, _Where is your control boy?_

“How did Phasma send you a message?” Dameron wasn’t…accusing, he sounded disappointed. Hux had broken a trust here, and he wondered at the feeling of loss that settled in his chest.

“It is not what you think,” Hux sighed while he took out his datapad, browsing through the file structure until he came to the _Games and Leisure_ folder and opened _Force: The Card Game_.

He lifted the datapad so Dameron could see, “There is an option in Force that lets you display three featured cards on your profile.” Hux tapped the appropriate setting and pulled up Phasma’s profile, which he was using at the moment. There, he’d chosen to display the droid emperor card, followed by a lich knight card, and last a light side energy card that was a picture of berries.

“OK?” Dameron was not following, yet.

“The droid emperor is me, Phasma is the lich knight. The berries mean I’m hungry.”

Dameron was silent, for a beat, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Dameron’s posture changed immediately, the tension resolving into the buoyant ease Hux was beginning to associate with him. Hux, in turn, also felt himself relax. “You two have a secret code within your game sim?”

“We had to, before. Ren was relentless. It was the only secure way to communicate.” Hux pulled up Mitaka’s profile and showed Dameron what was displayed: Again the lich knight card which was instead first, followed by the droid emperor, and lastly a light side energy card with a sun at high noon. “It _is_ juvenile but works in a pinch, when you don’t want certain Dark Lords breathing down your neck.”

“Is it just you and Phasma who use the code?” Dameron had taken the pad from Hux and was examining the cards, he grinned, “Of course you’d be the droid emperor.”

Hux hesitated. If he let Dameron in on the extent of his code, he would be jeopardizing its very purpose. Except this wasn’t the Finalizer, and Dameron wasn’t Kylo Ren. But, Dameron had the game on his datapad, and now, if he was clever, he knew Phasma’s player id and could use it to stalk his profile…that could prove a complication. But something small and delicate inside Hux insisted he be honest, that it was the right choice to make. “We all use it, Mitaka, Phasma, everyone in my direct command.”

“Damn Hugs, how devious.” The relief Hux felt at the _smile_ Dameron flashed him left Hux reeling.

 _I don’t want to disappoint him_.

The idea was so foreign that Hux drew into himself, suddenly reminded of his youth, and all the people he failed to prove his worth to. Had he had made the wrong choice? The wrong _choices_? Dameron was disarming him in a way he didn’t know was possible. His congeniality cutting Hux to his very core and leaving him raw and wounded.

Dameron noticed him drawing away, and he held the datapad out, “I think it’s harmless, I won’t snitch.”

Hux reached for the pad, but when his fingers closed on it Dameron took that moment to lean forward, head bowed toward him conspiratorially, “Like I said, your secrets are safe with me.” His voice was low, as if he were speaking of something else, something Hux couldn’t grasp but was obvious to Dameron. Still, Hux barely suppressed his shiver.

Instead, he took the pad, thumbed the screen off and tucked it back into his pocket. Turning on his heel he looked over his shoulder at Dameron, pausing long enough to respond, “I hope so, Dameron." 

-

Strolling the halls of the base, Poe went through his roster of responsibilities and checked off what was left. Non-active duty days were slow to start and easy to go, and Poe’s daily chores consisted of checking in with the flight crew and making sure their fighters were serviced and ready for deployment…and that the bickering which was so common amongst hot headed pilots was being kept to a minimum. He also ensured each pilot was fit for flight duty and not drunk from a night out – or _in,_ as was the case here on Ajan Kloss. Because it wasn’t as if there was anywhere else to get a drink on the whole of the kriffing planet or anything.

He was also responsible for checking in with the engineers who worked on their fighters, and today it was Rose and her direct team, so Poe knew he wouldn't have to worry about a thing. Rose held all of her engineers to a high degree, so high that even when she wasn’t on duty they tended to perform above and beyond. Not that the Resistance was structured to enforce a minimum standard of efficiency among its members, but Poe played the part of overseer despite that. His charm made him an easy commander to report to, but his reputation proceeded him, so much so that people went out of their way to impress him. Usually that meant everyone performed their duties to the best of their abilities.

But today he was getting an earful from Rose, who was upset that half her crew had been commandeered to assist with the Finalizer and had been given the day off without her notification.

“I’m sorry Rose, I thought I sent you a message last night,” Poe had taken Rose aside so their disagreement wasn’t front and center of the hangar bay.

“This is not the first time you have kept me in the dark Poe Dameron, and it won’t be the last,” Rose stood her ground, her tiny stature beguiling a force of personality that no one on base wanted to be on the wrong side of. “You didn’t even let Finn know. I went to him first, you know, gave you the _benefit of the doubt_.”

“Wait, what does that mean?” Poe felt like he was six again and his mom was reprimanding him for getting into her fighter without permission. _You knew better than this Poe, you’ve disappointed me_.

“You know _exactly_ what it means.” Rose was not backing down, Poe needed to figure this out.

“Is Finn upset with me?” Poe was slowly putting the pieces together, this wasn’t about Rose, this was about _Finn_.

Rose’s cross expression confirmed his suspicions.

“Got it, I’ll go talk to him okay? You have everything under control here?” Poe took a step back, hands out to the side. _Unthreatening, don’t run, she’ll sense your fear._

“Lucky for you after yesterday even your pilots are too tired to cause a ruckus, so yeah, I’ve got things under control.”

“If you need _anything_ \- “

“I’ll reach out to Finn. Get out of my hangar Dameron.” And with that, somehow Poe Dameron, General of the Resistance, was dismissed from his own hangar bay.

Not like stranger things hadn’t happened in the last twenty-four hours.

Such as learning that a certain First Order general had a knack for designing game sims.

The memory of Hux sitting beside him while running through the mechanics of _Force_ was a welcome distraction from the idea that Finn was upset with him. He wondered what Hux and Phasma were talking about over their lunch date, if Hux was telling Phasma all about last night. Of course Hux would embellish the story: _And then he got on his knees and polished my boots with his tongue –_ And the two would laugh over their caf and play _Force_ and pass secret coded notes to one another making fun of the love struck Resistance general that Hux had twisted around his little gloved finger.

The idea that Hux had an honest to god _friend_ actually brought him some bit of comfort. During the war it had been easier to imagine that everyone in the First Order were brain-washed human shells who didn’t have friends, families, relationships, or like, a sense of humor. But every crack in Hux’s emotional armor revealed more of the man beneath: a person like any other, with trauma and interests and talents. What had driven him so far as to build something like _Starkiller Base_? Poe was finding it difficult to reconcile the Hux from that morning with the version of Hux in the Holovid who stood atop a building and rallied his troops and then fired a superweapon that destroyed _worlds_.

Part of Poe really wanted to ask Hux about it, yet that same part was also terrified of the answer he would get.

Poe left the hangar bay in Rose’s capable hands and sent a message to Finn, forgoing asking if he was free and simply asking where he was. If his hunch was right he was shadowing Rey, who was obsessing over Kylo Ren, because Finn was one of the only other people on the base who understood what a kriffed up mess _that_ relationship was. Compared to Kylo Ren, Hux was a walk in a park. That park might be located on the dark side of a dead moon filled with Rathtars and poisonous man eating plants, but a park, nonetheless.

When Finn’s message came back Poe knew his hunch was right. _Down with Rey. Help me. She’s gone crazy._ Making his way down the stairs and into the labyrinth of subterranean tunnels, Poe nearly stopped short. Someone had taken florescent neon colored tape to the walls in an attempt to make sense of the maze. Lines of bright green, pink, yellow and orange ran along the tunnels, splitting off in different directions in some semblance of a…map? Poe wasn’t sure what it meant when the green tape he was following suddenly switched to blue, so he typed another message to Finn: _Was this rainbow of tape your idea or do I have to go to upper management?_

Finn’s response came almost immediately: _I thought our FO friends could use a little fun in their life._

_If by fun you mean throwing them an underground bunker rave I’m 100% in._

_You know me, I’m always on board for a good theme. Follow the green/blue tape. We ran out of green after Connix used most of it to make a welcome sign for the mess hall._

_Blue it is, seems appropriate. How’s our Angst Lord doing?_

_We’ll find out soon enough._

It occurred to Poe that Finn wouldn’t realize he knew precisely where he was going and how to navigate these tunnels, that even his closest friend had no idea of the many visits Poe had made to Hux in his prison cell over the last few weeks.

Poe continued along the blue tape, passing by more and more First Order crew the deeper he went. They’d transformed the underground tunnel network into overflow housing, which actually worked out really well considering Poe’s suspicion that these tunnels were originally a housing complex for the fort above. Shower rooms were scattered along each segment of the tunnel system, along with large open halls and smaller singular self-contained living spaces which were probably meant as officer’s quarters but were now dilapidated beyond use. When the Resistance had moved into the fort they hadn’t the numbers to fill these rooms, most everyone bunked up in the primary housing, or on their own ships. But, they’d recognized the value of having an underground shelter of sorts. They had repaired what plumbing they could and cleared out a number of the rooms to use as supply storage and their brig was mostly a ‘drunk tank’, of which Poe had only thrown three people into over the course of the last six months. Until Hux that was. Then it was an actual prison cell.

Now, it had been commandeered into a Kylo Ren cage. Poe rounded the corner to find Finn standing in the hallway beyond, typing furiously into his datapad.

“Heya buddy!” Poe announced his presence, waving as he approached. Finn looked up, the expression of _relief_ so plain on his face that Poe had to force the smile to stay on his face. _Oh no._

“Thank the force you’re here Poe. I need your help. Rey has lost her mind.” Finn sounded _desperate_.

Poe resisted the urge to laugh, “You’re gonna have to be more specific bud.” Because Rey was already kinda crazy, in that endearing force sensitive kind of way.

“She’s _in there_. With _him_. Has been _all night_.”

 _Ohhhhh._ “Yeah, uh, Finn let me tell you something about girls and boys-“

“Uhg,” Finn’s face twisted, “I’m not an idiot Poe.”

Poe shrugged, felt his face lift in a dopey kind of smile, “Have _you_ been here all night?”

“Of course I have!” As the words left Finn’s mouth Poe saw the realization dawn on him. They both fell quiet, staring at one another, before Poe broke down into gasping laughter. Finn followed a moment later.

The sound of their laughter echoed down the hallway, catching the attention of a group of First Order passing through. They paused at the cross section, staring at them with apprehensive concern. Poe gathered himself together and turned towards them, lifting a hand in acknowledgment, grin still splitting his face. The group quickly continued on their way, just one man falling behind and lifting a half-hearted arm in response. He was quickly pulled out of sight by his companions.

“Not the friendliest bunch, are they?” Poe wondered aloud, turning back to Finn who was wiping tears from the corners of his eyes.

Finn shook his head, shoulder lifting in a shrug, “They’ve been like that all day. I think they’re scared of Kylo Ren.”

“ _I’m_ scared of Kylo Ren,” Poe clarified, faking an aghast expression.

“He’s got _nothing_ on Rose.” And Finn’s face was so _deadpan_ that even as Poe burst into another round of laughter the memory of his encounter with Rose in the hangar bay replayed in his mind and Poe realized Finn might not be joking.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Poe gathered himself together, smoothing out his face and stifling his laughs. “This is serious. I can be serious.”

Finn grinned at him. This time the relief on his face looked like it might stay put, “Thanks for coming down here, I can’t just _leave_ her in there, you know?”

Poe nodded, turning and throwing his arm around his friend’s shoulders, “Has she sent you any messages at all?”

“Yeah, here, I just sent her another.” And Finn lifted his datapad and showed Poe the mostly one-sided conversation that consisted of Finn asking things like: _Are you okay? Are you still okay? How many fingers am I holding up? Five. Are you sure you’re okay?_

Rey had responded, of course, except during a few hour span between the hours of 2:30am and 7am where Poe assumed she was asleep because that’s what normal healthy people did in the dead of night.

Rey’s responses were gentle and concerned: _Yes, I’m fine. I’m fine. Three – how about me? Good job :) Go to bed Finn, I’ll be okay!_

The last message Finn sent was _Poe is coming down here and you’re in big trouble now._ Of which Rey just responded _Oh no not Poe I’m sooo scared._

“Why am I a joke?” Poe feigned hurt, placing a hand over his heart, “I can be scary!”

“No, you really can’t be,” And though Finn smiled when he said so his tone was _pitying_.

At that moment, the hydraulic door to the former drunk tank now Kylo Ren cage clicked and slid open, revealing Rey framed in the dim light of the room beyond. Finn jumped to attention, turning and stepping forward to place his hands on her shoulders, looking her up and down.

“Oh my gosh, Finn, I’m _fine_ ,” Rey smiled up at him, expression tender and soft, but tired. Rey looked exhausted. She looked exhausted a lot lately. Empathy allowed him to imagine all the things that might keep Rey up at night - It had not been an easy time for any of them.

Rey stepped out from the threshold and into Finn’s arms, the door closing behind her faster than Poe could catch a glimpse of whatever was going on beyond. If Kylo Ren was in there he must not be awake, or aware.

“Ben is sleeping, it’s been a long night,” Rey sighed, body sagging against Finn. He looked happy enough to help hold her up. “He’s weak in the force. We were working through our bond, trying to repair the ley lines in his body. It’s slow going but we’ve made some progress.”

Poe pretended he understood what she was talking about by quickly layering a serious expression over his face, “Oh yeah? So he’s gonna be okay?”

“Yeah. He’s gonna be okay,” She said it was such a profound _solace_ that Poe couldn’t help but feel a little guilty of his apprehension at the idea of Kylo Ren’s recovery. But he also understood, how could he not?

“I’m…glad. That’s good Rey, I know what he means to you,” Poe smiled at her, reaching out and cuffing her across the cheek. To go from believing that someone so important to you was dead to finding them alive again…Poe could only imagine that lightspeed-skipping ride of emotions. “Is he, how to put this lightly…still an evil bastard?”

“ _Poe!_ ” Rey admonished, laughing. Finn caught his eyes though and the two exchanged a _look_ , because it wasn’t like that wasn’t the question of the hour or anything.

Rey looked between the two of them, realization dawning. “Sorry, sometimes I forget that no one saw him how I did on Exegol. He’s…he’s changed now. He wants to be called Ben again.”

“Sometimes _I_ forget that I’m the only one who lived on a star destroyer with him during his terrible tantrum years,” Finn joked, but the thread of truth was there, dangling out in the open.

“Hux did too!” The words spilled out before his brain caught on. Poe cringed as his friends both leveled their full attention on him.

The moment wavered - Poe shifted his weight to his other hip.

“I guess I really can’t judge,” Rey murmured softly, and Poe felt her force touch brush against him, not searching, but comforting. _I understand you,_ it said. Poe found strength in that.

“Yeah, Poe, but he was no walk in that park either,” Finn sighed, suddenly weary again.

“Compared to Ren he may be a Rathtar infested, poisonous man eating plant park, but a park, nonetheless,” Poe joked. _Disarming, disarming, disarming._

Finn looked worried, “It’s almost as if you’ve given this some thought.”

Poe shrugged, afraid to say anything else lest he incriminate himself further.

Rey took the opportunity to slip her arms around Finn and give him a hug, “Thank you for watching out for me, I’m gonna get some food and some sleep. You should too, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah, me too,” Finn sighed, returning Rey’s hug. They parted ways there, Rey slipping off by herself and leaving Finn and Poe to make their own way up to the main base above.

They walked in companionable silence. The few FO they passed by paid them just enough attention to acknowledge that he and Finn held some level of rank, but were not _their_ commanders, so to speak. Poe wasn’t sure what would happen if he had to break up a fight, or hand out a reprimand to a First Order. Would they even listen to him? They’d probably laugh in his face. Finn was right, Poe did not exactly spark fear in the hearts of his fellows. His leadership style was far more _inspiring_. Hux, however - Hux might be the only person capable of making sure these men and woman abided by the rules.

He and Finn emerged from the tunnels and into the far busier and brighter main compound. Lunch hours were nearly over and most everyone was finding their way back to their duties or their quarters, or out into Ajan Kloss’ countryside for some leisure time. Poe assumed this would be where he and Finn parted ways, but Finn asked if he wanted to grab something to eat before mess shut down for the afternoon, and Poe agreed.

He still wasn’t sure if Finn was alright about all of this. They hadn’t yet had the chance to talk about Finn’s feelings, considering these were formerly his peers, maybe even his friends. It was so easy to forget sometimes, Finn’s history. It was even easier to forget that history in the face of a war, where changing sides was never as simple as having a change of heart. Of anyone on the base, Finn was the closest mirror for these people. And where Hux could maybe direct them, it could be Finn who truly reached them.

The mess hall was mostly cleared out and the food picked over, but what people remained were split down the middle. First Order were off to the right against the interior cement wall, huddled together around the banquet tables set up there. Resistance members were more spread out but keeping to the two story window wall opposite, light flooding the space in a hospitable warmth. Connix’s sign hung over the buffet bar, the green _WELCOME_ large and looming and just awkward enough to be comical. But the tension was there, hanging heavy over the space.

He and Finn scrounged up some leftover scraps and headed towards one of the tables by the window. The tall glass overlooked the dense canopy of trees and provided a miles long vista of the horizon beyond. The mess hall itself was suspended over a cliff side that dropped several hundred meters down into a ravine of bramble where the remains of an old canal fed by the distant mountains had dried up into a shallow creek. Ajan Kloss was beautiful, in a wild untamed way that suited Poe just fine, and the base they’d made out of the ruins here felt more like a home than anywhere else he’d lived in the last decade. It reminded him of Yavin-IV, and that made it easy for Poe to settle into the routine he’d found here.

Finn wolfed down his plate of food while Poe sat back and picked at his, eyes scanning the hall looking for that shock of red hair, wondering where Hux was, what he was doing, what he was thinking. He wondered how he’d find him, after this. If it had been such a good idea to leave him alone. Was it a mistake, trusting Hux? Poe didn’t feel like he had a choice, not if he wanted this _thing_ to work out between them. But just like it was easy for Poe to forget Finn’s history, Poe found it so easy to look past Hux’s, especially now that he was seeing the person beyond the propaganda posters.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Finn’s mouth was full and his words were muffled, but he was watching Poe closely, “Or I can try to guess, three chances?”

“Cheater, I know you and Rey have been training together.” He raised an eyebrow at Finn when he rolled his eyes.

“I’m not that good, doubt I ever will be.” Finn swallowed down the last of his food, pushing the plate away, licked his lips. Poe saw his gaze turn internal, and now _he_ wanted a penny for _Finn’s_ thoughts.

But Poe also had a pretty good idea where they lay.

“You know Rey will be fine, right?” Poe said the words softly, because Finn looked like he needed that right now. “She and Ren, there’s something there. I don’t think he could really hurt her if he wanted.”

“I know.” Finn turned his head to gaze out the window, his deep brown eyes nearly golden in the light of the sun. “But what else can I do? Someone needs to watch her back. These people…Poe when I went with you, when I helped you escape the Finalizer, that was the most difficult day of my life. And now a ship full of people have made that same decision, when it was so difficult for me as one individual.”

“You don’t trust them?” Poe asked, because he had to.

“It’s not a matter of trust, it’s a matter of survival. What motivated them? Were they really out of options? I can’t help but think we’re inviting the enemy into our home.” Finn sighed, lifting a hand to drag it down his face, “But I don’t _feel_ that way. My feelings say to help them, to trust them. But it’s kriffing _scary._ ”

Scary was the only way to put it. Trusting Hux was one of the scariest things he’d ever asked of himself.

“I feel ya,” Poe breathed.

“How you holding up? Bitten off more than you can chew with Starkiller?” Finn grinned at him, and Poe felt his stomach twist. _You don’t know the half of it_.

Poe pursed his lips, wondering how much he should reveal to Finn. They were _friends,_ and Poe was never good at keeping his feelings to himself. He wanted to confide in Finn, but it felt selfish. Hux was not a pleasant part of Finn’s past. And while Finn wasn’t the type to hold a grudge, he might be the type to forget and not forgive. “I don’t know bud, he’s pretty messed up right now. It’s hard to watch, I’ve just been trying to help.”

“I saw you two yesterday, at the beach,” Finn didn’t elaborate, but looked at Poe as if there was more to be said.

Poe had wondered, he knew Rey had been there but he hadn’t seen Finn, “You saw when he collapsed?”

“He collapsed?” _Ah, so not then_. “Well, I mean he looked like he was about to – When he freaked out on Rey, right before the evac.”

“Oh yeah,” Poe paused, remembering kneeling at Hux’s side and pressing the canteen into his hands, carefully stripping him of his gloves, all soft words and gentle touches. Looking into Finn’s eyes, he saw he _knew_. He was just waiting for Poe to say it. Poe felt a sheepish smile split his face, “Am I really that obvious?”

“Oh, obvious is an understatement,” Finn’s eyebrows were raised, his tone aghast. “Between you and Rey I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

 _Damn_. Poe hung his head, “I can't forget how he saved our lives, Finn. I just want to help.”

“I get it. It's just hard, for me. To forget what he's done, or even think of forgiving him. But I don't fault you for caring.” And Finn was _smiling_ , it was small and tight and a little bit forced, but he was _trying_ to understand.

Poe smiled back, carefully holding onto this moment, when Finn proved yet again he was a better man than anyone else Poe had ever known. They sat there together, quiet and companionable, the sounds of the mess hall fading into the background. Poe felt the brush of peace against his subconscious, not as light and refined as Leia, or as soft and knowing as Rey, but breezy and warm, a gentle buffer of calm that chased away the shadows of his thoughts.

“Bullshit man, you’re catching onto this force stuff just fine.” Poe looked up at Finn from beneath the curls of his hair and saw his friend smiling back at him just like he had dozens and dozens of times.

Maybe everything would work out okay, after all.

But then he saw Hux stalking his way across the hall, headed for the exit, his gait long, the line of his shoulders hard, the heaviness of his step forced, and Poe knew there was still more work to be done before anything was okay.

-

Hux stood at the threshold of the mess hall, the double doors propped open and a stream of people filing past him inside. The Resistance members that brushed by him either ignored him with a resolute determination or outright sneered at him. Hux was unbothered, these people’s opinions of him did not matter, and the obvious displays of displeasure at his presence bolstered him in a way that scorn usually did. He’d grown comfortable being despised, he knew how to maneuver through it.

As always, he was prompt for his appointment with Phasma, but now he was wondering how he would find her in this great mass of people. The room was large enough to seat well over two thousand, but Hux could not help but note the First Order men and women who had decided to take their food with them to eat elsewhere. He nodded to these people, his presence by the door more like a herald of safety for his crew than the awkward impotence of action it actually was. They glanced up at him, most mute of reaction, some with a look of relief, others with an emptiness Hux found worrisome.

A ruckus of voices echoed from behind him, and Hux turned to observe Mitaka and Phasma caught up in an altercation amongst a number of First Order and Resistance members. Well, Phasma was caught up in it. Mitaka was off to the side, arms clasped behind him, frozen at attention as the disagreement before him quickly devolved into an actual fight. Phasma, meanwhile, had a Resistance member caught in a sleeper hold and a First Order lifted off his feet by the collar of his uniform.

If anyone would stand out in a crowd, he could count on Phasma, of course.

Hux swept into action, abandoning his place by the doors and striding towards where Phasma stood. The hall fell silent, attention on Hux as he moved through the room, whispers rising above the sound of his boots. _Is that him? General Hux._ _Starkiller._

Hux breathed it in. _Let them stare._

Hux leveled a _look_ at Mitaka because really, he could be doing _something_ , and barked at his men to stand down. Six First Order men, including the one hanging from Phasma’s fist, flinched as Hux stalked up to them. He recognized several from the trooper program, but there were an equal number of officers. While Hux might expect a stormtrooper to lack the personal discipline to avoid a public fight, his officers were held to a higher standard.

“What is the meaning of this?” The men had scrambled to line up in attention, each one staring at a spot over Hux’s right shoulder, hands by their sides and heels together. None of them volunteered an answer, which pleased Hux enough because as far as he was concerned, there was no answer that would excuse their behavior. “Captain Phasma, you may release those men.”

The officer hanging from her fist hit the ground with a grunt, losing his footing and landing on his ass. He looked embarrassed, but quickly regained his feet and schooled his face into an innocuous expression as he joined the others at attention. The Resistance member Phasma released stumbled to the opposite side, where Hux now saw a gaggle of people who were obviously this man’s friends, clapping him on the shoulder and laughing obnoxiously. Hux’s stare was withering. He was no fool to what was going on here.

Turning back to his men, he barked, “If I ever see any one of you engaged in a fight on neutral ground again I will send you back to the outer rim in a casket.” He paused, making sure the words sank in. They knew better than to think Hux would make an empty threat. _Good_. “Get to your quarters and don’t show your face until first meal tomorrow. Dismissed.” His men broke from attention, eyes downcast as they filed past Hux, except for the man who had been in Phasma’s grip, who looked over his shoulder to get one last glance at the Resistance member he had been fighting.

Hux caught his eyes, “ _Move along_ , soldier.” The man jumped and scrambled off.

Turning back to the group of Resistance, who had unfortunately _not_ taken that moment to slink off themselves, Hux grew giddy with the golden opportunity to lay some discipline down at _their_ feet but then logic prevailed. These were not his men, and however the Resistance might be run, Hux knew if he tried to assert any semblance of control it would cause nothing but trouble for his crew. He would have to rise above, be the better man, as it were. _Oh what irony_.

So Hux turned away, dismissing them in all ways but words, and aimed his focus on Mitaka, who was still frozen but looked like he was about to bolt and follow his men out of the mess hall.

And then that Resistance member had to go and _open his mouth_.

“Don’t worry boys, the lady didn’t leave, we can still have our fun.” Laughter, dark with malice. The man was gripping his dick through his pants in an obscene gesture, his meaning was obvious.

They were after _Phasma_.

Hux didn’t move, but he slid his eyes to the side, locked them with Phasma’s. She grinned at him. It was violent, bloodthirsty.

Slowly, Hux turned around. Slowly he walked up to the group of Resistance. He had his eyes on all of them but as he expected, the one who had been in Phasma’s hold, the one who said _those words_ , stepped in front of the rest to confront him. Hux stopped, just inches from the man’s face, met his stare, narrowed his eyes. Hux was taller, but this man didn’t seem intimidated. He stood his ground and grinned like the fool he was. But Hux knew men like this, _hated_ men like this. Men who were nothing but big words and small egos, who had to threaten the basic sanctity of a person to make themselves feel strong. Hux knew how to deal with men like this, he had been doing it his whole life.

So he leaned forward, tipped his body into the man’s personal space. The man’s bravado faltered, then and there, when Hux’s head dropped beside his, when he turned his face just enough to whisper into his ear, “If you want a piece of my Captain, next time I suggest you ask nicely.” Then he pulled his knee up into the man’s ballsack and dropped him like a bag of spare parts. He withered on the ground, clutching his groin, a strangled sound barely working its way free of his throat.

“You should be thankful I’m not Dameron, or you would be walking away with far less than your ability to use _rape_ as a threat.” He said this loud enough that everyone within sight could hear. To let them know _this_ was the quality of person who they might think to defend, to side with, Resistance or not.

And to remind them that he and Dameron were a unified front, because Hux could see very clearly now that they needed to be. Not that he actually thought Dameron would ever try to burst a man’s testicles for any reason whatsoever. Hux could always dream.

Hux and Phasma walked away, Mitaka at their heels, passing by the group of Resistance as they helped their man to his feet. Hux looked into their eyes and saw what they were, made a note of their appearance, burned their faces into his mind. He’d let Dameron know what had occurred here, let him know what kind of thoughts were going through the minds of the men in their midst.

Finding a table against the far wall, deep in the shadows of a corner of the hall, Hux slid into the seat furthest to the wall so he could have a clear view of the room. Phasma sat to his right and Mitaka took the seat that put his back to the room. The three sat there, like that, silent and considering. Hux was, granted, fuming on the inside, but was hiding it well enough, as he always did. Phasma looked completely at ease, as if nothing had happened at all, and Mitaka looked like he was about to burst with anxiety.

“Mitaka, pull yourself together.” Hux murmured the words. Sometimes he had to remind himself of why he had promoted this man so far up the chain of command. It certainly wasn’t for his ability to control the men. Rather, it was his ability to maintain that crude understanding of tactics and make sound decisions under pressure. Hux would never second guess leaving Mitaka in charge of a Star Destroyer in the heat of battle. Put him wit to wit with another man and ask him to come out on top and Mitaka would always leave him wanting.

“Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir.” Mitaka blurted the apology, hanging his head and staring at the stained plastic tabletop.

Hux sighed, eyes on him, wishing he had something more reassuring to say than, “Chin up. Phasma’s honor is still intact, as I expect it always will be.”

“ _Oh,_ now there is a line even _he_ didn’t cross.” Phasma grinned at him, kicking at Hux’s ankle under the table. “Lucky for him he wasn’t my type, or he’d be eating more than his own balls for lunch.”

Mitaka didn’t look any less uncomfortable, in fact he looked profoundly out of his element, as he always did when Phasma and Hux bantered with each other. The pitfalls of climbing the ladder into the big leagues was you found out your commanders were just people and the pedestal was all in your head.

“I’ll go get us something to eat, excuse me,” Mitaka scooted his chair back, the sound of metal grating across tile making Hux’s skin crawl, and then the man was one pace short of running away from the table.

“You think he’ll be back?” Phasma mused out loud, watching Mitaka’s back until it disappeared beyond a table of troopers.

“He better, I’m famished,” Hux crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair, felt the furrow in his brow, the turn of his mouth. _Relax_. It was easier said than done. “Be sure our men get their meal tonight. I don’t want them to think I don’t appreciate their intentions.”

“Hux.” Phasma’s voice lacked the amusement of before, instead serious, firm. Hux looked up, saw how she leaned forward over the table, in his space, “Thank _you_ , you’re a good man.”

Hux felt his stomach drop at the words, felt the wrongness of them, the lie in their truth _._ “Hardly.”

But Phasma was smiling at him, still close, voice low, “I don’t care what they call you here.” _Starkiller._ “I know you, and I know your worth.” _I see you._

Hux closed his eyes, briefly. Only giving himself a moment. His throat was tightening, some sort of emotion trying to work its way out but Hux refused, sighed instead. Which was its own mistake, because then _words_ spilled out, “They say they won’t try me, if I help.”

Phasma stayed quiet, watched him. Her eyes had gone cold, “Armitage, that sounds like blackmail.”

Hux drew in a breath, released it, and with it came the words he had dared not speak aloud, had not allowed himself to even think, “What does it mean if I _want_ a trial.”

“ _What?_ ” Phasma had gone rigid, her eyes wide and the lines of her body all sharp edges. “What are you _talking about.”_ Was it really so inconceivable a concept? Hux didn’t think so.

“Starkiller Base.”

“Where is this coming from?” She had leaned completely into his space now, blocking him from view of the hall. Hux was grateful.

Closing his eyes, he imagined himself on the that dias, overlooking thousands of troops, bright red ripping through the sky, “Starkiller Base was a mistake.” If he wasn’t already a traitor these words would have sealed his fate.

Phasma looked feral, like she was about to fly into a panic, “Stop this. Armitage. This is not who you are.”

“It _is_.” Hux hissed it, all the rage and despair he kept constantly at bay threatening to spill out, “I destroyed an _entire system_ , Phasma. And now what, I get to walk away from that? Where is the justice in that?”

“ _Justice?_ " She spat the word out, disgusted. "We were at _war.”_ She cut off, regrouped. “If it meant we would win. Would you do it again? If you could go back.” Phasma’s voice was flat, emotionless. The question heavy, important to her.

And Hux knew the answer. Had known it for a long time. “No.”

Phasma breathed out, her breath hot and forced, like a beast being held in a cage, fuming to be released. She fidgeted in her seat, chewed her lip. Hux watched her carefully, understood she had something to confess herself, something she too struggled with.

“I let the shields down.” The words came fast, un-embellished, but Hux understood. “It wasn’t Rivas.”

Hux knew, he had always known. “I know.”

“Kriffing _hell_ , Hux.” Phasma slammed her fist down on the table top, drawing it back quickly, apologetically.

They sat there like that, the silence punching through the muted echo of hundreds of voices, consuming them like a dying star imploding in upon itself.

Eventually, “We’re quite good at being traitors, aren’t we?” Hux meant it as a joke, but the delivery fell flat. Phasma was hunched over, hair hanging in waves over her cheek, hiding her face.

“We do what we have to. To survive.” She said the words, words she’d said a hundred times.

 _Survive._ He wondered now, if it was worth all the trouble.

Mitaka returned to a table far different than the one he left. He looked between them, carefully, as if he was the reason for the somber mood. He had two trays, and he slid one onto the table between Hux and Phasma, but kept the other in his hands as he stood their awkwardly, waiting.

“Dopheld, you are under no obligation to eat with us,” Hux sighed the words, waving a hand at the man.

“Understood, sir. Can I get you anything else?” Mitaka was earnest, of that there was no doubt.

“No, thank you.” Hux almost said _dismissed_ , but he knew that would hurt the man’s feelings.

“I’ll take my leave now. Thank you, sirs.” Then he backed away, as if Hux had ascended to the status of Emperor and no one had told him. Hux watched as he retreated to a table of First Order officers, Thannison and Unamo among them. They were quiet, heads bowed together, but welcomed Mitaka with a readiness Hux was happy to see.

“I’m going to eat this meal and then I am going to go find _something to punch_ ,” Phasma dragged the tray towards her, picking through the food before choosing a pre-packaged honey cake.

Hux cringed, watching as she tore the plastiwrap apart and shoved the whole thing in her mouth in one bite. “Phasma, of everything on that tray that is the least _food_ like option.”

“I don’t kriffing care, it tastes good.” Crumbs flew from her mouth, and Hux pulled the tray away before they landed on the actual nutritious food.

The options were simple, but wholesome. The vegetables had been sub frozen at some point, but were now rehydrated into their original shapes, if not taste. There was a small sandwich with a meat patty of unknown original and a single petal of a leafy green, and a hunk of crusty bread set in a delicate soup of some sort, the thickness of the bread soaking up the oils and juices. Hux chose that, slowly biting into the bread and savoring the taste. It was good, flavorful. Hux cleaned the bowl, metal clinking lightly as he spooned the soup into his mouth and used the bread to sop up the excess, watching as Phasma reached for the other packaged honey cake, _his_ honey cake. He smacked her hand away.

“Eat your vegetables, you child,” Hux pushed the plate towards her and Phasma snarled something that sounded like _bastard_ but Hux wasn’t mad, because this was normal. _Their_ normal.

_Survivors._

Would they survive this?

They cleared the tray of food, except for Hux’s honey cake, which he planned to save for later when he felt he could actually enjoy it. Neither of them made a move to abandon their table and leave the mess hall. Phasma was quiet, observing the room beyond them, eyes scanning the heads, lingering on an exchange of words here, a gesture there. Hux worried she was looking for another fight, but only briefly. Phasma was a good Captain and she was just doing what she did best, which was watch over her soldiers.

When her eyes narrowed Hux followed her gaze to see Dameron and FN-2187 walking across the hall towards the windows. Hux suddenly wanted to flee the room – he feared Dameron would see him, sense his mood, reach out and _touch_ him and ask if he was _OK_. _No, Dameron, I am certainly not okay._

But Phasma had _that_ look on her face.

“Leave it, Phasma,” Hux said the words quietly, but he knew she heard. He followed Dameron, watching the way he sat back in his chair, the easy comfortable way he spoke with his friend. “FN-2187 is not your responsibility any longer.”

“Mmm,” She acknowledged him, at least. He knew she wouldn’t do anything stupid. “Dameron needs to know about his men.” _Ah, maybe not_.

“I’ll take care of Dameron,” Hux dismissed the thread of conversation before it began.

Phasma, it seemed, had other plans. Hux felt her watching, her stare heavy and suffocating. “Like Dameron takes care of you?”

Hux went cold. “Phasma, _don’t,_ ” His voice was hard, like durasteel.

“I was there yesterday, on the transport.” Hux refused to acknowledge her, refused to entertain the idea that Dameron’s obsession with him was anything more than the man’s overactive hero complex. All those too soft touches, knowing looks, insidious words…Dameron wasn’t _interested_ in him, he was _doing his job_. It was the only logic that made sense, because Poe Dameron could not be _attracted_ to _him_.

 _He_ could not be _attracted_ to _Poe Dameron_.

But Phasma continued, changing tactics quickly, finding another nerve and _pinching._

"I watched the footage Hux, Pryde released it.” She could not mean what he thought she did.

“What footage?” He knew the footage. Replayed it every night in his head.

She paused, licked her lips, leaned forward. “When he took you. They spun it like you fled with them, but I saw it, saw what it was. I saw what you were trying to do.”

He _hissed_ then, thin and breathy, face twisted into a snarl. “Stop. Phasma, do not.”

She never listened to him though, not unless he pulled rank on her – which was cowardly, but he almost did it. He almost stood from the table and snapped her to attention, turned her on her heel and marched her overly armored ass right out of the mess hall.

“You knew Pryde would kill you.” The words hit him, tearing a hole in his composure, and she knew, she saw it and still Phasma prodded him. Hux felt his walls building up at light speed. “You _wanted_ Pryde to kill you.”

“So they left in the part where I _begged_ to be left behind?” He drowned in the memory, burned black into his mind’s eye, like a holo left on pause for far too long. The fear he had felt, the panic and desperation. _Let me stay, let me die._

Death was the rightful fate for a traitor. And he could have died quickly, on his own terms. With the belief he had made his last mark on the world. That at least _something_ he did _mattered._ His life would have made sense then. And now all of it, everything he had done in the name of the First Order had been for _nothing_. And he was _still alive_.

“He saved your life.” He did. And Hux _hated_ him for it.

“Maybe I didn’t want my life saved, Phasma. Maybe that was my choice to make.” Hux felt hollow inside, like someone had come and scooped out everything that made sense, left him with nothing but an aching hunger for something he didn’t have a name for. _We’re survivors, Hux._

 _Not me_. He wanted to say. _I’m ruined._

And then Phasma reached into that empty core and _wrenched,_ “He cares for you Armitage.”

“ _Shut up.”_ Hux unraveled, barking at Phasma like a caged dog. _Rabid cur_. Heads turned, whispers arose. Hux didn’t care. He stood, palms pressed to the table, head hung low, the chair he was in sliding across the floor with a bone grinding whine. For just a moment he lingered there, gathering himself together, or trying to. He was shaking. He needed to leave. Needed to regroup, re-evaluate. Needed to get away from Phasma, who knew _too much_.

He stalked from the dining hall, spine straight, shoulders back, his step weighted with the urge to _run_ but without anywhere to go. _You’re a coward, boy. Spineless and weak_. _Filled with secrets, let me see._

Beams of red, tearing through his head, _choking_ him. _Coward coward coward._

Hux fled.

-

Something was wrong.

It was Finn who told him to go after Hux. Poe had watched him leave the room, sweeping past the tables of First Order and Resistance alike, drawing glances and whispers in equal measure. _Starkiller_ he heard rise above the hum of conversations, whispered among the Resistance like an omen, a curse. Poe swallowed, at the edge of his seat.

“Poe, _go_.” Finn gave him the push he needed, releasing him like a hound who had caught the fox’s scent. Poe flashed an apology at his friend, his smile just guilty enough, and then he was off, slipping between the tables on Hux’s trail.

He knew how it must look, how anyone with half a brain would put two and two together, but that had never stopped Poe in the past and it wasn’t about to now. Let them see him care. Let them watch him chase after _Starkiller_. If he was going to set an example for his men then this was the lesson he wanted them to learn: that not one among them was beyond empathy.

Hux disappeared beyond the mess hall doors before Poe could catch up, but he saw the way people glanced over their shoulders to stare down the corridor. Poe strained to see past the heads around him, to catch a glimpse of that red hair, that black uniform, before it was lost to the undulating miasma of bodies. But what he couldn’t see in the flesh he saw in the aftershocks of his presence, the ripples of his presence in the very atmosphere of the hallway. He saw how the bodies had parted in a fault line along the route he had taken, Resistance and First Order alike parting like the sea for a man they all feared. Poe broke into a jog, dodging through the crowd and reaching the wake Hux left behind him, followed it deeper into the base. People got out of the way for _Hux,_ why not _him_.

“-‘Scuse me, sorry!” Poe stepped to the side, nearly colliding with a towering Abenedo as he rounded a corner. He nearly lost Hux in that moment, nearly watched his path fade from grasp. _No_. _Not again, not again-_

And then he realized where he was, saw the familiar walls and arching windows. The officer’s quarters. Hux was in front of a door Poe knew well, “Hux!” But Hux had already stepped inside, out of sight. Poe slowed, urged his beating heart to ease, his breath to even, his gut to untwist. He approached the door, his door. His home was just beyond that durasteel door but he paused, preparing for what he would find on the other side. _Hux._

The door slid open on silent tracks and Poe stepped over the threshold. Inside, the room was dim. Bright mid-afternoon sun filtered weakly through the tinted glass and bathed the room in a veil of light that felt heavy, melting off familiar objects in strange shadows, dust motes floating through the air like a thousand glittering stars. Hux stood in the middle of the room, his back to Poe, a burned out silhouette. The whole of him eluded the light, left behind an empty void in the shape of a man, an echo of what might have once been.

“What do you _want_ , Dameron?” The words turned his veins icy, dropped him into an ocean of freezing tethers that threatened to pull him under. The room grew unnaturally quiet, Hux’s question hanging there, begging an _answer_. Poe didn’t have one, had too many. Didn’t know which was _right_.

Hux turned his head, light catching just enough he could see the profile of his face, the tilt of his down turned mouth. He was waiting, watching. Poe was failing.

“Are you o-“

“Am I _okay?_ ” Hux snarled the words, turning whip fast to face Poe, stepping into his space. “Am I _okay, Dameron?_ ” Poe felt his eyes widened, knew it was easier for Hux to see him than for him to see Hux. Knew what his face must have revealed: shock, concern, a thread of _fear_. _But not for me._ For Hux, Poe was scared for _Hux._

“What do you _want_ , _Dameron?_ ” He asked again, his voice a hard hiss, dripping with poison. His face twisted into something monstrous. Poe watched, frozen, caught like a prey animal in the hunter’s trap. He swallowed, opened his mouth, closed it again. Watched the silken way Hux moved, watched as he reached to tug the gloves from his hands, dropping them to the ground between them. The irreverence of it was like a slap, and the thought crossed his mind that this was where Hux hit him.

But then Hux _sank to his knees_.

“It _this_ it? Is _this_ what you _want?”_ Hux tipped his head back, stared up at Poe with unhinged eyes. And then he reached up to his collar, long pale fingers catching at the clasp there, _unhooking it –_ two, three, four clasps and then a pale wedge of skin was exposed, all sharp collarbones and a heaving pulse.

“ _Is this what you_ _want from me_?” The words cut through Poe, exposed the supernova center of his core. Exploded him into a million tiny fragmented pieces that burned out hot and bright and fast.

_Yes yes yes-_

Then the light caught, in the way it tends to, and Poe saw the glint of moisture on Hux’s face, wet with tears, and Poe _drowned_.

“ _Hux.”_ Poe followed him down, falling to his knees and _reaching_. In the span of an instant, Hux was on him, hands clutching at his shirt, pulling himself into Poe’s lap, his body all jagged edges and a trembling weight. Poe grabbed at his waist, fingers flexing around the slim width of him, a reaction more than a thought as Hux cupped both hands around Poe’s jaw and descended. Breath spilled over Poe's lips, Hux's mouth open and hot as he pressed them into something Poe couldn’t quite call a kiss. He gasped into it, was consumed by it, swept to sea by the force of Hux’s desperation. Clawed hands held him steady, pressed into the juncture of his jaw to open his mouth, and then Hux was licking into him, all tongue and teeth and saliva, their lips slipping over one another, wet and sloppy. Hux bit at his lips and panted into his mouth and pressed into his body as he _devoured_ Poe.

He could taste the salt of Hux’s tears.

“Stop- _stop, Hux.”_ Poe came to his senses then, pulled his mind to the surface and realized what was happening, what this was. He put his hands on Hux’s shoulders, pushed gently at first and then firmer when Hux clutched even harder at him. _Kriff, come on._ Hux was stronger than he looked, his skinny limbs sliding through Poe’s grip to twine and untwine around his shoulders, his weigh shifting to wedge their hips together before drawing back away, his teeth sinking into Poe’s lower lip as his hands dragged over his stubbled cheeks. There was a slickness there, wet and warm, and Poe realized in that moment that he too had begun crying. Hux must have felt it, tasted it, because he drew away, quickly, moving only far enough back to _stare_ at him.

“Hux, not like _this.”_ Poe’s voice caught on the words - couldn’t get out more, but he didn’t need to, knew it was the right thing to say because Hux _broke._ His tears turned to sobs and his face contorted as his body collapsed upon itself.

Poe caught him, pulled him close, held him tightly - held him together.

Hux trembled apart in his arms, the shaking in his shoulders mirroring the shattering sound of his shallow gasping sobs. Poe felt Hux’s face against the bare skin of his neck, wetting it with his tears and hot breath, his voice muffled by the bunched fabric of his shirt. As Hux unraveled Poe closed his eyes and listened, absorbed the soft sounds of a sniffling nose, the small wet breathy gasps, the catches of his voice in his throat. Listened to the way the sounds worked their way free against Hux’s will.

And Poe’s own tears fell wet and plentiful. He could not stop them, did not want to. Why should Hux suffer alone, when he had been alone his whole life? Poe knew his history, he had read his files. He had _seen_ his suffering. So he turned his face into Hux’s hair, breathed in his scent, and heard the way his own breath hitched on his inhale. How could he not break for Hux, when Hux sat trembling in his arms with an emotion Poe had never before witnessed in anyone?

But Hux ached for something Poe thought he might be able to give, if only Hux would let him. This artificial bravado, this violent push towards something he wasn’t ready for, was Hux’s attempt to self-destruct. Poe saw it clearly, saw how Hux propelled them towards the edge together, ready to jump – Just as he had as a spy, embracing the futility, the morbidity of his plight. But Poe did not operate like that. He might be a smoking gun in the seat of an X-wing, but in matters of the heart Poe was always careful, considerate, mindful of a person’s fragility.

Poe suspected Hux had never know a careful, considerate touch in his entire life.

Smoothing a hand down Hux’s spine, he let it come to rest at the small of his back, briefly, testing, before wrapping it around the slender circumference of his waist. Hux responded by pressing closer, harder than before, squeezing Poe’s shoulders and pressing their bodies together, edge to edge, seam to seam. Then the whole of Hux’s weight settled into him, legs splayed on either side of Poe's thighs, hips resting closer to Poe's knees. Hux didn't weight much, for all his height, and as Poe guided Hux into place against him, he thought he could stay like this forever - subsumed by Hux's desire for a kind physical touch. Because it was apparent now, how desperate Hux's need for affection was, at least from Poe. And suddenly, it all made so much sense: that Hux would crave this from him, that Poe might have been the first to ever give him a taste - that all Hux was asking was for Poe to kriffing follow through with whatever it was he had started.

Because Poe _had_ started this, he'd started it the moment he dragged Hux from the Steadfast, the moment he'd watched over his unconscious body healing in med bay, the moment he'd taken Hux's hands into his own and shown him a careful questioning tenderness. It had all culminated in this, pushed Hux to this moment, and Poe would take that responsibility, felt something inside him thrill at the idea of it.

Overwhelmed, Poe turned his face into Hux's hair, free hand coming up to thread fingers through the fine strands. Red and gold in the low light, as delicate as the gossamer wings of a silk worm. He carded through it, the pads of his fingers dragging along Hux’s scalp, drawing out whimpers that mixed with his sobs in a beautiful mess of sound Poe committed to memory. Cupping the back of Hux’s head, he drew him deeper in their embrace. Hux took the cue, turned his face further into the crook of Poe’s neck and _breathed_. His mouth made shapes against the skin there, between sobs, words Poe couldn’t understand, so close to his pulse he wondered if Hux could feel how fast it was racing. _Oh, Hux._ Drawing in his own shuddering breath, Poe pressed his lips to Hux's temple, quickly, remembering, and then dropped his forehead onto his shoulder, closed his eyes.

They held each other, cocooned together in the darkness of the room, protected from everything but one another.

 _I'm here_. Poe said the words to himself, then mouthed them into Hux’s shoulder, not the answer Hux had so desperately sought – and a shadow of the words he really wanted to say, but didn’t dare set free. Those were words he wanted to run through the halls of the base shouting, words he wanted to carve into the flesh of the universe itself.

Words he wanted to tell _Hux_ , but knew he would not understand, not yet. Not when he could hardly parse the feelings he had for Poe – what was so plain and obvious to him eluded Hux, drove him to _this_. He could not expect Hux to understand the depth of Poe’s emotions, the extent of his desire. Not yet. But Poe had hope, now.

Hux was the first to draw away, though not completely. Long after his sobs had tapered off and his eyes had dried out, he pulled his face from Poe’s neck, head hung low but eyes finding Poe’s. He didn’t apologize, as Poe thought he might, and for that Poe was grateful. If Hux believed he owed Poe an apology for…for _this,_ Poe thought he might start crying again. Instead he held Poe’s gaze and licked his lips and placed a hand on Poe’s neck, smoothing his thumb over the wet spot left there.

Hux was perfect like this, simple as that. His face was red, his eyes puffy, his mouth swollen, and he was _beautiful._ Poe wanted, desperately, to kiss Hux, a real kiss. Wanted to lean forward and touch their lips in a gentle press, to drag them together and savor the velvety softness, to lick his way around that down turned mouth until he found his way in and then burrow deep, make a home there for himself.

Instead he touched Hux’s cheek, flutter light. Would have brushed away his tears if there were any left to fall. Hux closed his eyes, released a sigh and then slid out of Poe’s lap. They sat there on the floor together, knees touching, neither ready to break away completely, but neither knowing where to go from here. Poe watched as Hux opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it, his adams apple dipping as he swallowed whatever words he wanted to say. But still, he didn't pull further away. He sat there in the quiet, still and waiting.

Waiting for Poe.

Poe saw Hux’s discarded gloves, black shapes on the floor beside them, and took them, brought them to his lap and smoothed them out atop his thighs. They were soft, calfskin, thick but supple, the leather a higher quality than anything Poe had ever felt. Poe placed his palm over the shape of one, his hand too large, thick and wide where Hux’s was long and slim. It made him smile, the juxtaposition so simple and curious.

Hux watched him, expression open. His mouth was parted, his eyes hooded, but his brows were drawn together in thought, likely trying to figure out what Poe’s fascination was with his gloves. Poe searched in face, absorbed what he saw, then flipped his hand over palm side up.

“Give me your hand?” He asked quietly, the first words spoken in a time Poe had lost track of. Hux’s eyes lifted to meet his, then he placed his hand in Poe’s.

His skin was so soft. It was the first thing Poe noticed. While his own hands were rough and calloused, Hux’s were delicate, bone fine and pretty, all elegant joints and long tendons moving underneath a thin layer of milk white skin. Poe smoothed his thumb over the top, over the knuckles, dipping into the soft spaces between his fingers. Then he turned Hux’s hand over, palm up, and repeated the motions. Here his skin was thicker, but only just, the mounds of his palms faintly blotched by the blood vessels underneath, the pads of his fingertips soft and spongy. Poe ran his fingernails lightly over his hand, from the thin bundle of tendons at his wrist over his palm and to his fingertips. Hux’s breath caught, shuddered out in a long sigh and Poe looked up, found Hux had leaned forward towards him, head tipped down as he watched.

“You have beautiful hands.” Poe said the words softly, watching for Hux’s reaction and smiling when he saw it. The change was small, a turn of his face away, a flutter of his lashes as he briefly lifted his eyes, a shift in his weight as he drew in on himself, but his fingers curled up and caught at Poe’s, lightly held them there. It was as if Hux could not decide if he were embarrassed or touched by the compliment and this made Poe smile wider, nearly grin. Hux bit his lip, watching Poe through the fall of his hair.

And then Poe took the glove and guided it onto Hux’s hand, slid it over his fingers and tugged it up his palm to his wrist. Smoothing his fingers again over the now covered skin, he wondered how much or how little Hux could actually feel through the leather. Hux’s breath hitched again, a tiny sound escaping this time and Poe drank it in, twined Hux’s fingers with his own, then he lifted Hux’s hand to his mouth. Pressing his lips into his fingers, Poe lingered there, watching as Hux’s chest heaved and mouth parted and eyes _searched_.

 _I’ve got you._ Poe didn’t say the words, but he hoped Hux understood. Poe would not hurt him, would protect him, from any and everyone, even if that person was Hux himself.

Poe repeated the motions with Hux’s other hand with no less care. Sliding the glove back into its rightful place and this time when kissing his knuckles, he saw how Hux’s expression softened, felt the gentle sigh of breath leave him as it ghosted over his lips. Poe breathed it in, breathed _Hux_ in, savoring him in whatever way was offered, content to exist in this moment outside time and in this space, together. Pale lashes dropped over colorless eyes, the gloom of the room still obscuring details, leaving nothing but the sensation of these small touches. It was affecting Hux, drawing him out into a reaching want that allowed Poe to maneuver through his defenses.

When he placed Hux’s hands down on his thighs and instead reached for his collar, the moment slowed. He had to lean in close, over Hux’s knees. The space between them pulsed, the energy contracting in upon itself as Poe’s hands brushed past Hux’s jaw and descended upon his bared neck. He watched Hux the entire time, saw when his eyes closed and his head tipped forward to rest their foreheads together. Poe swallowed, breathed heavy with this slow undoing of Hux’s defenses, thrilling with the trust Hux extended him. Beneath his fingertips, Hux’s pulse thrummed, a trembling quake below the surface of his pale skin. Poe didn’t linger here, this wasn’t his goal, but as he moved past his neck to his collar, he took that moment to trace the boney protrusions of his collarbones, dipped his fingertips into the cusp where they met. Hux’s breath stuttered and he leaned into Poe, exhaling in little warm puffs against Poe’s lips, small sounds escaping with every breath, so quiet Poe almost missed them over the sounds of his own blood rushing in his ears.

As he buttoned up Hux’s jacket, clasp by clasp, he took pleasure in putting Hux back together in this small way. That he could find and repair what kinks in his armor he could see, and that Hux allowed it, welcomed it? Poe drowned in it. _I’ll protect you, if you let me_.

They stayed like that, bent over one another, Poe’s hands resting alongside Hux’s neck, thumbs stroking over the edge where his collar pressed into his skin.

_What do you want, Hux?_

Poe wanted to ask, though he thought he knew the answer, now.

“Dameron.” His name, whisper soft, broke into the space between them. Poe trembled.

“I’m here,” Poe murmured, giving in, “What do you need?”

Hux opened his mouth, closed it, swallowed thickly as he struggled to put voice to his thoughts. His face was twisting again, brows drawn together and mouth pressed into a down turned line.

“It’s okay,” Poe moved a little bit closer, hands sliding up to cup Hux’s jaw. “You’re okay.”

The breath Hux sucked in gave Poe pause, but then he felt Hux’s hands on his thighs, felt his weight shift over him, and this time, when Hux’s lips met his own, it was in that soft gentle press Poe had yearned for.

It was a small thing, a brief brush that lingered just enough to ask for so much more. Poe chased after it, following Hux’s lead, pressing into him with an assiduous understanding as Hux showed him what his words would not say. He could feel the tremble in Hux’s body, the grip he had on Poe’s thighs baring his unsteady weight, as if his body were held aloft only by the hold Poe had on him. Hux’s shallow breath spilled against Poe’s mouth, his lips soft where they moved against his, parted just enough that if Poe angled his head just _so_ \- he gambled a single slow lick against Hux’s lips.

It was light, testing, a question but Hux opened to him, breath catching as his own tongue touched Poe’s with a tentative permissiveness. Poe eased them into it, leading Hux into a deeper kiss that edged them closer together, Poe sliding his knee between Hux’s thighs as he settled against him. Even here, Hux acquiesced, the hands on Poe’s thighs sliding up to grip Poe’s waist, his mouth parting so Poe could move deeper, enter inside him. When Poe curled his tongue over Hux’s, slipping past it to lick into Hux’s mouth, Hux _moaned_. The sound wavered, broken and desperate in the silence of the space around them, and Poe _grinned_ into the kiss.

And he marveled at this carefully controlled submission that restrained whatever desire Hux must be struggling with. The yearning for more poured from him, and Poe understood that if he allowed it, Hux would abandon himself to this, would go wherever Poe took him – that it was up to him to stop this before it went further than what Hux was ready for.

But _stars_ he was only a man.

Poe smoothed his thumbs over Hux’s cheeks, hands still cradling his face, as he drew back just enough to ask “Is this too much?” The words were more breath than sound. But Hux heard them, answered by pressing into Poe, lips catching against his stubble in a delicious drag as he sought him out again. Where before had been all biting teeth and clawed hands and Hux _taking_ , this was hesitant, obsequious and tender. It was _perfect_.

And it had to end _now_ or Poe might lose himself completely. He wondered, fleetingly, if that had been Hux’s plan all along.

Pulling away from the kiss, Poe moved a hand to card back through Hux’s hair while keeping the other cradling his face, fingers curving into the dip of his jaw below his ear, stroking, watching as Hux’s hooded eyes peered at him from beneath pale feathery lashes. He saw an understanding there, that this would go no further, not then, not yet, and the relief that released from Poe then brought with it a bone deep ease.

Still, as Hux’s eyes slipped shut and he turned his face into Poe’s hand, as his body sagged into Poe’s with a release that bespoke so much more than a physical weariness, Poe wondered at what _further_ meant for them, because he understood now it was so much more than this simple implacable attraction they shared.

Poe couldn’t help but smile at the possibilities.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That kiss ended up clocking in at 3k so I'm sorry and you're welcome.
> 
> The last scene was written to The Silicone Veil by Susanne Sundfor and I suggest you all look up the lyrics because it is so my head cannon for Hux its painful.


	4. Surrender

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couple warnings - Mentions of abuse and death to children in Poe's first segment. Also, some light smut towards the end, nothing too graphic, but I promised to warn y'all!

Hux dropped the holo call just as Captain Peavey began the long and tedious task of listing off his father’s achievements and why Hux was not, in his estimable opinion, worth the matter he was made of, let alone his father’s name. As Peavey’s image flickered out, the sigh that left Hux was a deflation of his very ego. Whatever position he might have held within the Order had long since spoilt, and the failed negotiations with his former peers were proof. Captain Peavey was just one more tally against his efforts to reach an understanding with the scattered remnants of the Order. Those of his father’s generation, like Peavey, had rallied together their resources and continued, if not in action than in vision, the ideals of Palpatine’s Final Order. Hux’s own contemporaries, the younger men and women of the order, had gone dark. Hux could only imagine the in-fighting that had devolved from his defection and Palpatine’s death. What he could not imagine was where the younger factions had scattered, and how he was to reach out to them- particularly when men like Peavey were acting as literal gatekeeper’s to any dialogue Hux might open amongst them.

Five standard days had passed since the Resistance had linked into the First Order Holonet. The Finalizer’s subspace antennae had survived its sinking along with the communications system brain, and with Hux’s guidance, the Resistance had been able to rig a local uplink which allowed them access to the Order’s net. His negotiations, as Leia called them, had been forthcoming, and overwhelmingly without success. Of all the officers Hux had reached out to, those who accepted his hails only seemed to be interested in telling Hux how much of a worthless failure he was.

Hux did not necessarily disagree with them.

“Chin up, General, you’ll reach them with time.” Leia Organa sat across from him, her hands folded neatly in her lap, her attention a heavy bough looming over the room. She had overseen every holo call he had made, the tickling tendrils of her scrutiny crawling shivers down his spine. No wonder his former compatriots laughed in his face and called him a dog; Hux could not help feeling as much himself as he sat across from this woman and begged these men and woman to abandon their pride and surrender to the Resistance, because it was the _smart_ and _safe_ and _noble_ thing to do for the sake of their crews.

Because what were storm troopers, if nod fodder for their cannons? What were their officers, but fellow true believers who would die for the cause? Hux had been that man once, not so long ago. He wondered where that man was now, because he certainly wasn’t here in this room holo-calling the chain of First Order command.

Hux dropped his head, stared at the datapad in his lap, the contacts glowing up at him in a dim blue phosphorescence. Ghosts of names haunted the list, Pryde and Griss having perished along with their crews during Exegol – The rest either unresponsive or their command turned over to newcomers like Peavey. Of all the names, Parnadee was who Hux suspected the most likely to be receptive to his offer, but her line had rang cold, lost to deep space or something more sinister. Futility gnawed at his frayed edges, carving out eddies of doubt that reached into the very seat of his logical brain. If he failed in this task, if he could not produce satisfactory results…Hux shivered as he considered the implications.

A gnat buzzed at his ear and he lifted his hand to swat at it, frowning as the buzz darted away. “Peavey was the last of them. If I could speak down the chain we might have better luck reaching the Order en masse, but it won’t be through what remains of high command.”

Organa hummed, eyes narrowed, gaze molten with a crude intelligence that bespoke decades of dealing with political fallout. Hux respected that, in this instance, she might have something to teach him. Of all Hux’s skills and achievements, there were too many of his father’s compeers left within the Order’s high command, and they all knew who he was, _what_ he was.

“The Order responds to propaganda,” Organa mused thoughts that had already come and gone from Hux, “We might launch our own program and see if it does not take?”

“Maybe,” Hux demurred, “But our content algorithms are designed to find and eliminate patterns that originate outside high command’s channels. My credentials are certainly already blacklisted, I doubt we’d get anything through successfully.”

“Well it would still be worth the effort to try, wouldn’t it?” Organa’s smile was twisted with that thing she called _hope_.

“Of course, General.” Hux shivered as the weight of her attention left him cold and exposed, stripped down to chalk and bones. The gnat was back, and Hux frowned and gave his head a sharp shake to spook it off.

Together they exited the transport that currently served as their comms station. Parked alongside the brush line that separated the sloping dunes of the beach from the denser foliage of the jungle, the transport connected to the Finalizer via an uplink cable that ran the length of the beach and into the lake where it connected with the communications brain aboard the ship. It was rudimentary, a quick fix until the Resistance was able to slice into the system and copy the necessary protocols that would allow them local access to Order net. Unfortunately for them, nothing would replace the subspace antennae. So unless their engineers were able to successfully remove that piece of hardware from the Finalizer, this umbilical cord was their only option for communication with the remnants of the First Order.

Droids drove tracks through the sand, the dismemberment of the Finalizer now several days underway. The medical supplies, armor and weapons had long since been salvaged, and now the Resistance had moved onto harvesting the very durasteel and tech components that made the ship what she was.

It had been one day since her lights had gone out. After running for days off ion energy reserves, Hux had stood on the beach and watched as she went dark. The nose of her thrust up out of the water like the honed edge of a great spear, the lights running along her hull winking in the rolling brownout before finally fading to black as her systems gave way to a slow decaying death.

It had been three days since the first corpse had washed ashore, the forgotten crew member having died days or weeks before the ship ever reached Ajan Kloss. The bodies of the dead had been stored in one of the damaged hanger bays, awaiting a funerary process that would never come. Now, bloated with gasses and half eaten by the fauna, the beached bodies came in with the waves, two or three washing up together. The droids had taken to covering them with the durasteel panels they stripped from the ship until the mass grave was dug deep enough to hold them all.

It had been ten days since Dameron had left on a mission to the Unknown Regions to hunt down the location of the Academy, the coordinates scrubbed from the Finalizer’s log and passed onto Organa by Mitaka himself without Hux ever the wiser.

It had been eleven days since Hux had debased himself at Dameron’s feet. Eleven days since he admitted to himself that whatever he wanted from Dameron was in the least sexual, and at the most something far more insidious. _He cares for you._ Phasma’s words haunted his dreams and waking moments in equal measure.

They had not parted ways on good terms.

When Hux realized where Dameron was headed, he had frozen up, dread spearing its sharp needling fingers directly into his veins. _The Academy_. Dameron had no idea what he was walking into, and Hux, who knew too well, was to be been left behind. They had fought, Hux demanding that he join the raid and Dameron telling him in no uncertain terms, _not even if kriffing hell froze over_. Hux did not have the heart to tell him what he would find. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Dameron’s luck was stronger than fate herself.

Mitaka had acted without his knowledge for a reason. _Why_ Mitaka even thought to share the Academy’s location in the first place…

“I asked him, if you must know.” Organa’s voice cut deep into his mind, she may as well have not spoken a word. Hux felt his world converge into a sharp, precise focus. “And it was me who decided that you would not be a part of the team. Poe requested your assistance, I thought Captain Phasma would prove more capable for this particular task.”

Hux swallowed, turning to stare Organa in the eye. Unwavering, she gazed back. He could not feel her force, had not felt it in days, and as that knowledge rooted itself in the rotten pit of him, Hux felt all the paranoid desperation he constantly kept at bay swell to the surface and break loose. He took a singular step back, it was all the weakness he allowed himself.

Organa sighed, tipped her head to the side like a predator already fat from a meal, more curious than threatening. “Do not worry General, you’re quite good at sensing force probes, I’ve had to brush up on my technique.”

“How long-“ but he caught it then, the barest brush of her against his thoughts, like a tiny buzzing insect flitting around his ear. Hux went cold.

“Not long, and not often. To my own surprise you’ve proved quite truthful, and I have no interest in whatever thoughts you might have beyond what directly affects our work together.” _I know about you and Dameron and I don’t give one wit._ “Come now, I think we’ve worked hard enough for one afternoon, don’t you?”

The ride back to the base was one of the most uncomfortable forty minutes of Hux’s life. He had sat himself in the furthest corner at the back of the transport and Organa had chosen not to take the hint, sitting across from him in what he supposed was one more way for her to assert power over him. When she reached out with her force it was the buoyant brush he readily recognized. It did not feel invasive- but it felt uncomfortable, if only because its nature was gentle, easeful.

“What do you want?” Hux almost broke down and begged her to stop. He was empty of secrets, empty of information, he’d given everything away and what was left was a husk of the person he had once been. What more could he give this woman?

“May I share an observation with you?” Organa’s force touch pulled away, leaving Hux shivering with a lingering nausea.

“Do I have a choice?”

“No,” She smiled, the wrinkles around her eyes deeply creviced. “But what you do with the information is up to you.”

Hux remained silent, waiting. The space around Organa throbbed with a mournful energy, her eyes just distant enough that he knew part of her was elsewhere, lost in a moment of her own.

“He’s left marks on you, scars if you will.” There was not a doubt in Hux’s mind of who _he_ was. “Along the pathways he took into your mind. There are not many, but those that are there are quite…deeply rutted, for lack of a better term.”

The filtered air of the transport filled his lungs with a dry itching burn, he turned his head to cough into his hand, clearing his throat to hide the shortness of his breath. A perverse sense of violation filled him, that this woman could so easily see through him, into him.

“I can heal them, it would not be the first time." She continued, heedless of his his discomfort. "Ben was never skilled with this aspect of the force, his methods have always been crude, but in this case that is to your benefit.”

Hux felt his body betray him system by system, starting with his breath and culminating the nerve endings at the edge of his body. He could feel every hair move in its follicle, every bead of sweat swell across the surface of his skin, “No, I-“ Hux bit off what he wanted to say, swallowing it down with the rest of his thoughts, “No. I’m fine, thank you.”

“The offer stands, if you change your mind. I was able to help Poe after his encounter with Ren, and while not as deeply scarred as yours, his mind was still quite damaged.”

Hux knew he never actually heard Dameron’s screams, but he thought he could imagine what they sounded like, thought they must sound like what his did, even if they were only ever let free in his head.

Ren was a slumbering beast, and Hux knew his days were numbered. The moment was coming when Ren would walk the halls of the base as freely as Hux, and when that moment came Hux had no idea what he would do.

Not for the first time over the last week did Hux find himself wishing Dameron were there, had never left him behind. It was not a feeling that sat well with him. Hux recognized his natural need for companionship, had always sought it in the structured relationships command provided him – the acceptable leisure hours spent in the officer’s lounge, sharing a drink with a visiting commandant, conversing with Phasma over a game of Force, joining Mitaka on the training deck for his weekly physical exercise hours – but never _this_ , this desire for a physical connection, the yearning for another person’s very presence. Dameron haunted him at every moment, memories triggered by the simplest actions, the most mundane objects, as if Hux’s mind were only finding excuses to think of him.

Granted, he had not moved out of Dameron’s quarters as Hux had promised himself he would. He’d gone so far as to put the request in, had been assigned a bed number and a locker down in the bunker below. But Hux had stood frozen at the top of the staircase, wary of returning to anything like the prison of before, wary of voluntarily abandoning what little freedom he had been allowed.

Wary of being any closer to Ren.

Hux stepped into Dameron’s quarters and felt the knots in his shoulders release, just a little; recognized that, in this space, he felt safe. It was a strange idea, one that Hux could not reliably say he’d ever felt before. Certainly not aboard the Steadfast, where he knew his very life was on borrowed time – and neither on the Finalizer, when the idea of safety was in how many uprisings they could put down, how many systems surrendered to Order control, how many hours he could go without Snoke summoning him or Ren destroying something.

But here, in Dameron’s rooms, Hux felt he could let go, just a little. So he stayed, and he waited, and he wondered what Dameron would say when he got back and saw that Hux, given the opportunity, had decided to remain.

Mess would be opening for evening hours and Hux considered taking his meal with Mitaka, if only to assuage this desire for companionship, but he knew he would be foul company. Mitaka was never fully at ease with him, and Hux was never one to impose himself on his crew like that. No, perhaps he could convince a droid to bring him a tray again, or he could wait until midnight meal and avoid the crowds altogether, as he had been doing for the majority of his meals.

A knock at the door felled his plans.

Rey stood on the other side, large eyes locking onto his and she didn’t even need to say a word because Hux _knew_.

Dameron was back.

-

Never before had Poe felt as relieved as he did in that moment, when Ajan Kloss’s familiar green and blue marbled horizon appeared in his viewport. The carrier, named _Old Sailor,_ dropped from lightspeed and into a smooth cruise through orbit, main thrusters cutting out as gravity did most of the work of bringing him in. Poe switched over to the auxiliary engines, stabilizing the ship as they hit the thermosphere and began their descent. The carrier maneuvered differently from the ships he was used to flying, but he’d given Collins leave to collect himself for the landing, and Poe had flown enough craft in his days that he picked up the nuance of piloting new ships with the ease years of experience beget.

They’d chosen this ship for its personnel carrying capacity, the cargo decks already outfitted to transport what would amount to a small army. According to Mitaka’s intel they had assessed a need for about 4600 seats, and _Old Sailor_ was equipped to carry almost twice that. The extra mouths to feed would have certainly pushed Resistance resources to their limit, but the New Republic had promised immediate assistance in the feeding and care and relocation of the children they were to bring back with them.

The carrier was returning home empty.

Poe landed the carrier in the large craft landing field located several kilometers off the eastern edge of home base. Evening was descending slowly on this side of the planet, the sun barely dipping behind the tree tops at their southern back, its deep orange light spilling over the canopy of trees in a fiery glow. Lights from the transports arriving to collect them gathered at the edge of the landing field – far too few than what they’d planned for – just enough to get his men back to base along with the supplies they’d brought along in preparation.

They’d left the bodies behind. There had been a moment, surrounded by the gray clad corpses of girls and boys as young as five and as old as seventeen, when they’d considered the manpower it would take to provide a proper burial. Poe had made the call, in the end, that the walls of the Academy would be mausoleum enough, that if the universe was kind it would pulverize the asteroid that the Academy was built upon, would send it into the systems sun, drop it into a black hole and rend the halls as lifeless as they were then for the rest of time.

Instead, they’d documented each and every child, officer and servant, compiling a disjointed database of images and a list of names that held no identity in any meaningful way, beyond that someone’s son or daughter, someone’s brother or sister or friend or family member had been there, died there, in a mass suicide that felt so much more like genocide.

Poe wondered, on the way home, if Hux had known. He thought he might, had asked Phasma as much, but she had shrugged at him, eyes dark with an emotion Poe gambled to call loss.

The hum of warmed up transport engines, the smell of oil and fuel and grass and thick muggy air were all familiar comforts Poe clung to. And as he oversaw his crew into the transports, clapping a shoulder here, patting a back there, a small smile for Kaydel who had requested this particular mission and had spent the trip back crying into his shoulder, he considered what this meant for the Resistance - what this meant for the Order. The loss was monumental for both sides; a whole generation of talent wiped out, innocent lives snuffed for the sake of some overzealous agenda to bring _order_ to the galaxy.

Phasma brought up the rear along with the trooper Kayvee Nine and Lieutenant Trig, both of which had specialized in data reconnaissance and had been able to access the video logs that had recorded the last hours of the Academy and the fate which befell it. Poe had not watched the footage. He’d known enough when he’d seen the purpled blotches around their mouths and eyes, the sallow skin, the empty cups that littered the room. Still, Phasma had insisted, had directed her men to document what they could, that even this, for the First Order, was a step too far, that it was the work of the Final Order.

Poe hadn’t been able to see the difference, didn’t see why it mattered.

The ride back to base was spent in silence. Phasma sat beside Poe, her armor filling the space and wedging him into the back wall. She had muscled her way into the seat and Poe wasn’t about to complain. Phasma, he had decided on the journey out, was a person he liked. She was no-nonsense in that military way that reminded him of his navy days. She was also ferociously protective of Hux, to the point where she’d told Poe, point blank, in graphic detail what she would do to him if he so much as laid one of Hux’s pretty little hairs out of place. Before Poe had gotten a single word out, let alone a whole sentence, to tell her what he and Hux were or were not – as if _he_ knew – he realized that had never really been her concern.

He _had_ managed to get some tips on playing Force. He’d even won a game, much to both their chagrin.

“Are you going to tell Hux or am I?” Phasma muttered, voice low and barely audible over the rumble of the transport. Her pale eyes watched his in the deepening shadows, orange light from sunset flashing across the platinum sheen of her hair and setting it alight. There was a hardness there, in her face and eyes, that said so much more than her words ever would. Poe imagined his face must be a mirror, could feel the unnatural twist to his mouth, the deepening crevice in his brow. Everyone on the _Old Sailor_ had brought something back with them, something dark and blighted.

Poe sighed, pushed a hand through his hair. He’d already reported to Leia over holo, and she didn’t expect him for a debriefing until the next morning, which meant he was bound to run into Hux sooner rather than later. “I’ll tell him, unless you think he’ll take it better from you?”

“He’s not going to take it well at all, but you’ll never be the wiser.” Phasma looked off, chewing on her bottom lip as Poe wondered if she had ever seen Hux as he had, on his knees, face wet with tears, begging for something he couldn’t put voice to.

Poe hesitated, then agreed, “I’ll tell him, then.” Phasma nodded, not meeting his eyes, instead she swept her gaze over the faces of his crew, lingering on Kaydel who was curled up against Collins's shoulder before returning to him.

“Hux is-“ She broke off, chewed at her lip again, and Poe finally noticed the split in it where she’d bitten through the skin. Poe licked his own lips, felt how dry and chapped they were, his tears having left them raw. “Hux isn’t _well_ right now.”

Poe nearly laughed out loud, was glad when he held back because whatever Phasma was trying to tell him seemed important, “Yeah, I gathered as much.”

“Dameron.” She was staring right at him again, eyes catching and holding him at attention. Poe understood, suddenly, why Phasma and Hux were so close – they both had an _intensity_ about them. “Don’t be a hero.”

It was the frankest thing she’d said yet, underneath all the layers of implication. “I know.” It came out just above a whisper, guilty with self-awareness, “I’m not gonna hurt him.” Poe meant it, hoped Phasma trusted him, hoped Hux trusted him. Poe knew he had a hero complex, he also knew that this thing between him and Hux had morphed into something far more complicated than that.

Phasma’s eyes searched his face, finally relenting when she found what she was looking for. Her chin dipped in a sharp nod, “Okay.”

The transport door lifted in a hissing decompression as the hydraulics pushed the pistons up and out. Poe followed on Phasma’s heels after the rest of the crew disembarked. Greeted by a small swarm of friends and comrades, the base seemed quiet in the deepening evening. It would be meal hours right now, which helped explained the lack of fanfare at their arrival, and Poe was glad for it. What should have been a joyful rescue mission had turned into a funeral procession and Poe wasn’t sure he would have been able to handle more than this small crowd of a reception.

Rey and Finn were on him before Poe had barely stepped off the transport, Rey taking his hand and Finn throwing an arm over his shoulders. They were saying something to him, but Poe wasn’t following. Instead he found comfort in their touch, their closeness and the sound of their voices. Poe felt himself responding to something Finn said, some teasing joke he’d made, the smile on his face a thoughtless reaction, the catch of his laugh a habit. Rey’s force touch brushed against him, said words neither of them spoke out loud, thinking Poe didn’t want to hear them, didn’t want to talk about it - what he’d left behind, what he’d brought back with him.

Maybe they were right, but maybe they were wrong. What they thought of him, what they saw in him: the go-lucky good guy, the hero from the storybooks, always on and always up and up and up - Sometimes it felt like a burden. Sure, maybe he was that guy, he felt like it often enough. But right then, all Poe wanted was to be back in his room wrapped up with Hux, safe in a moment of weakness neither one of them faulted the other for.

Poe chanced a glance up to scan the faces around him. Disappointment licked at the edge of his thoughts when he didn’t see that familiar shade of red or the black silhouette of a too-dark uniform. But then, there, further away than he expected, hidden in the shadows of a large weeping palm, eyes on no one else but him – Hux.

“Poe, I’m sorry. Leia told us, that had to be tough.” Finn broke through to him, and Poe pulled his eyes from Hux with an effort that felt exhaustive.

“Yeah…yeah.” Poe didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what could be said. “Kaydel’s not handling it well, we should probably give her a few days leave, Collins too.”

Rey was watching him closely, “You too, Poe. You can take time if you need it, you know that right?” And thank the force for Rey.

“Maybe,” Poe smiled at her, small and fleeting, shrugging out from under Finn’s arm and clasping his shoulder instead. “I’ll see how I feel tomorrow. I’m already better, being back here with you two.”

“Oh, Poe,” Rey sighed at him, linking her arm around his and laying her head on his shoulder, a brief touch that would have lingered had it been any other circumstance. But there was an understanding in her affection, a cautious letting go that bespoke her knowledge that Poe yearned to be elsewhere, in the company of another, and that was an empathy she could commiserate with.

The moment passed and they broke apart, Rey stepping back beside Finn instead. They exchanged a glance, fleetingly, but Poe caught it, and he knew they understood. “We’re going to grab food from the mess, if you’re hungry?” Finn left the question open, and it was an easy out, one Poe was grateful for.

“Nah, not much of an appetite right now. I gotta take care of a few things anyway, you two go on without me.” Poe’s eyes darted back to the palm. Hux remained where he was, still watching him. “I’ll see you in the morning, at debriefing?”

Rey nodded an affirmation and Finn reached out and gave him one more hug, which Poe returned with an enthusiasm that was genuine. “Thanks, bud.” Finn squeezed him tighter.

As Poe watched his friends slip into the small crowd headed back to base, he felt the chasm between them rift wider. He wasn’t sure when the cracks first formed, but they were there now, had been there for some time – long before the Finalizer fell. It made sense, in the way shared trauma bonded people together, that they would drift apart when wounds began to heal. But Poe could feel clearly that what he’d seen at the Academy had driven that wedge deeper. How could a person explain in words the scale of what he seen? How could a holo and a lone man’s report describe the smell of rot, the taste of decay, the cold hand of indelible death that still permeated his very senses? How could he tell them how he had stumbled to his knees and retched up bile beside the corpse of a six-year-old girl frozen with her fingers half stuck down her throat, her last moments spent clawing the poison from her tongue, fear a heavy shadow across her open staring eyes?

Poe shivered in the warm air, pushed a hand through his hair and watched as one by one, the transports emptied and his crew wandered towards the base, mere ghosts of the people they once thought they were.

When the last person had gone and the transport engines had grown cold, Hux stepped out from the shadows of the palm. Poe watched his approach, resisted the urge to turn and meet him half way, pull him into an embrace and ask him all the questions he had: _Did you know? Why didn’t you warn me? Why did they do it?_ Instead he let his eyes roam Hux’s face, indulged himself in the turn of his mouth, the furrow in his brow, the sharp edge of his cheekbones in the blood tinged approach of twilight.

“Dameron.” Hux said in way of greeting, and Poe tried, he _tried_ to smile, but it came out as a grimace and Hux stepped closer, hands unclasping from behind his back and reaching – hesitating – then finally settling one on his upper arm. It was awkward, he could tell Hux was not accustomed to casual touch, but the gesture was clear, and Poe found himself leaning incrementally closer, just enough that he could feel the press of Hux’s palm into his bicep.

“Hey.” Poe reached up himself, fingers brushing along Hux’s jaw before he could stop himself, before Hux realized what he was doing. There was a moment where they froze like that, Poe’s fingers against Hux’s jaw, Hux’s hand on his arm, all small familiar touches that represented to Poe everything right and good in the world. He _needed_ this from Hux, and if the expression on Hux’s face said anything, it was that he might need it too. But then a gloved hand caught his hand before it could move any further, cold gray green eyes closing briefly, as if savoring the touch, and then he removed Poe’s hand from his face.

“Don’t- not here,” Hux said the words softly and Poe drowned in the sound of his voice, the feel of their fingers twined together because Poe had taken the opportunity to pull Hux’s hand into a firm hold. Hux stared at him, eyes searching his face, sliding to stare at their hands, head cocked to the side as if he couldn’t quite understand how that had happened. When Hux’s face relaxed and his hand returned his grip, Poe felt something inside him unravel. “Come with me.”

Hux led him away from the base, past the shrub line and into the denser span of forest that ran along the ridge overlooking the gorge below. Where Hux was headed, Poe couldn’t say – didn’t care – because Hux hadn’t pulled his hand away.

Light picked its way through the trees, speckling their path in a wavering dance of shadows. Sunset on Ajan Kloss was a slow thing, a lazy metamorphosis of light to dark that transformed the atmosphere into a kaleidoscope of chroma and showered the surface in a saturation that made everything appear as if it were the still smoldering remains of a burned out inferno. Hux moved smoothly over the soft loam of the forest floor, his step careful, meticulously plotted. Poe ambled along behind him, happy to follow his lead, happy to let someone else take charge, if only in this small way. Hux’s hand was a firm pressure in his and Poe committed the sensations to memory: the little squeezes that kept their hands together when Hux’s longer gait took him further ahead than what Poe could keep up with – the soft rub of the leather against his palm and between his fingers and the sensual slide of Hux’s hand beneath it. Poe marveled as these small touches, these tiny details, however simple and insignificant.

When Hux brought them to a stop it was at the edge of the ridge. Here the forest grew thin, the ground barren and hard with an outcropping of striated rock. The drop down to the gorge was yet several meters ahead of them, the ridge overlooking the sun as it creeped down the sky, the shape of it amplified as it approached the horizon line. Hux’s back was to him and the deep orange glow of the sun set his hair afire in a halo of gold. Poe couldn’t help but _want_. Hux was striking in a way that felt untouchable, a perfect poise of control and calm, but it was the person beneath that drove Poe to obsession.

 _He’s beautiful_. As if he’d heard the words, Hux looked over and caught Poe staring. Their eyes met, caught on one another and held briefly, suspended in unspoken admissions. It was almost peculiar, the feeling that settled into Poe, a cloying thing in his chest he didn't know how to assuage, so he moved closer to Hux, smoothed his thumb over the back of his hand and savored how it flexed in his hold. Hux’s lips pressed into a line as he quickly looked away and slipped his hand free, but not without a brief squeeze. Poe didn’t fight to get it back, instead he stepped up beside Hux - close enough to touch but staying his own hands - turning his gaze back towards the setting sun, comfortable in this quiet understanding of each other.

Together they stood, watching as the day was swallowed by night, the frail glow of the stars emerging from a sun bleached sky.

“Dameron.” Hux spoke first, his voice cutting the silence with the swift steadiness of a surgeon’s knife, “This is not your fault, you could not have stopped them.”

Poe could do nothing as his heart stuttered to a near stop, his breath coming shallow and strained, his eyes staring unseeing into the half crest of a bleeding sun. _So he had known_. “We might have, if we’d had the coordinates sooner.”

“They would have drunk the poison as soon as Palpatine’s death was confirmed; Protocol would have demanded it, so that Order talent would not fall into enemy hands.”

The gravity of Hux's unbosoming smothered Poe, left him _aching_. “But they were _children_.” The words rent him to pieces, his need to defend the most innocent, the most vulnerable among them - it consumed him.

“They were our most precious resource.” Hux whispered the words, and Poe felt them drill down to the crux of it, expose the truth of what the Order was – a fanatical cult, yes, obviously – but also a shunned people who were forced to scrape the dredges of the universe for whatever scraps they could salvage, where a child was the harbinger of a future where they would not be cowed into submission, where they would rise again to a power they would spread across the galaxy for the sake of _order._

 _They were always the underdog._ While his wily Resistance had always felt like the scrappy long shot of hope, with their menagerie of peoples and patchwork ships and fluid chain of command – it was the _First Order_ who rose from the ashes of a failed regime, who had no resources, no allies, nothing but their blood and children to rise above their circumstances and they’d _done it_.

And here was the very man of that first generation of children, who had nearly seen the Order to glory – who _would have_ \- if not for the hamstrung efforts of Kylo Ren and his obsession with his own personal quest to follow in his family’s shadow.

“Hux.” Poe breathed out his name, suddenly overwhelmed, _needing_ him desperately, consumed with the understanding of the extent of his pain, what he’d lost, what he’d given up. “I’m so sorry.”

Hux barked out a mirthless laugh, face twisting, “Don’t apologize to me. Those children are _dead_ Dameron, and if the world were just I would be dead too.” As the setting sun cast Hux in blood red, the words poured out of him, a confession Poe had suspected was coming, but not then, not like this. 

“Starkiller haunts me. Every time I close my eyes I can see it, I can’t escape it. I don’t _deserve_ to escape it. I’m responsible, it was my design.” Hux paused, licked his lips, as if steeling himself. “Life has taught me many things, and forgiveness has never been one of them. It’s a weakness, and weakness gets you _killed_. So why am I taunted with it? Why do I want it so much when I know that if I accept it, that death will come for me? Why am I afraid of death, when it’s all I’ve ever known?”

“Hux-“

“I’m _ruined_ , Dameron. I’m broken, and I don’t think I can be fixed.” Hux’s cheeks were wet with tears, but his voice held steady, calm in the face of this strange cry for help. “But I want it. I want it desperately.”

When Poe took his hand again, it was trembling. Poe held it steady, cradled it with a care as if it were Hux’s heart bleeding out in the cup of his palm. Poe saw, In the image of that girl, clawing her life back from a slow poisoned decay, Hux instead – Hux as a boy, and how easily that could have been his fate – but also Hux now, as he clawed his way through a world that had turned its back on him, a world that had failed him, a world that had forced him to carry the crippling burden of a generation of children just like himself.

 _I don’t want to fix you._ Poe confessed to himself, silent, but bold, a fire in the dark of his thoughts. _But I’ll protect you while you fix yourself._

If Poe had anything left to give, he would give it to Hux, and hopefully it would be enough.

-

Sometimes stories are told to entertain: Like the tale of two star crossed lovers finding each other against the odds, or the journey of a boy discovering within himself what it means to be a man - stories retold over and over through the lens of culture and class, that reveal the bucolic nature of the human condition when under the halcyon scope of order. More often, stories are told to teach: age old tales passed down from parent to child, the lessons wrought from their words a historical map of success and failure, all culminating in a moral agenda based on survival.

Tragedy was a tale Hux knew well, was the story he had lived. Even when it wore the bloodied skins of the hero’s journey, or the haunting visage of overcoming the monster, the golden gilt edge of rags to riches – in the end, Hux had always known tragedy was archetype of his tale, would be the story he told to the next generation, would be the lesson he passed on to whomever remembered him.

That the Academy’s story ended in tragedy felt inevitable, now that fate had unfurled her heavy albatross wing of cosmic justice. Still, Hux wondered if there was something he could have done. As he swiped through the images of the dead on his datapad, Dameron’s voice reciting a report Hux knew he’d spent all night compiling into thoughts that could be voiced with words rather than tears, Hux wondered if this too were his fault. He’d known of the safeguards in place at the Academy. He’d known Amret Engell had been put in charge of the acquisition, care, and training of the children. And he’d also known that she was Pryde’s man, loyal to the old guard, fanatical in her observation of First Order covenant.

And yet still, Hux had also seen, first hand, the ramifications of such observances. Had almost himself become victim to their practice, first at the Battle of Jakku, and again in their retreat to the Unknown Regions, when capture by the New Republic had licked at their heels. Hux first learned then, as a boy of five, of the pact kept by his father and his peers - that surrender was not on their horizon, even if it meant they would become the engineers of their own self-destruction.

“-We left the Academy how we found it, disturbing only what we had to, and documenting what we thought could help identify the dead.” Dameron’s voice didn’t shake, as Hux thought it might, and he knew it was only because he had said those words so many times, out loud, into the darkness of the night as he paced scars into the floor of his quarters.

Silence permeated the space, thick with the heady taste of trauma, a disease that spread like a plague.

Organa was the first to speak. “Thank you Poe, for your service and your sacrifice.” The words sounded empty, and Hux felt them reflected in the shape of his thoughts. This was a loss, for him and for the Resistance – and Hux was struck by that, at how here, in this moment, they were not so different from one another. When Dameron retook his seat beside him, Hux noted how he inched his chair a little closer as he settled in. Even here, amongst his friends, Dameron sought comfort from _him_ and Hux wondered at that, and how he understood _why_. That he had to resist the urge to reach out and offer that comfort was even more of a wonder. Hux swallowed, unsure of his own emotions, treading a ground that had no foundation to hold him.

“General Hux.” At the sound of his name Hux looked up, the cast of Organa’s tone catching him in the twining tendrils of her net. He did not feel her force, now that he knew what to look for, though surely she had changed her tactics already. Hux wet his lips, met her eyes and waited for the questions that had haunted him since Dameron left on this curse-ridden mission. He would take the responsibility of this as deservedly as he had taken that of Starkiller, for what were another few thousand added to his personal death toll?

“I am sorry for your loss, I understand that for all of the First Order’s technological and military strength, it was children you invested the most in. While you can guess my feelings regarding the way those children were treated, I can also recognize that this is a loss for you, and that this predicates the fall of First Order as it exists today. That said, I’d like for you to touch on the work we’ve done reaching out to what remains of Order command, so that others might weigh in with any ideas of how we might approach establishing a line of communication.”

The words were…unexpected. Hux had thought he would take the fall for this mission, that Organa would accuse him of withholding information, of orchestrating the loss for his own agenda that certainly must be nefarious still, even after all that he had given up.

Hux resisted the urge to look at Dameron, whose attention he could feel as keenly as if he were up on a pedestal under a blinding spotlight, exposed for all to judge.

“What is left of First Order’s high command, including Kylo Ren’s Supreme Council, has been unresponsive. General Amret Engell would have arranged the Academy’s-“ Hux broke off, considered how to frame the death of these children, which was certainly murder in cold blood, and not the mass suicide it was meant to resembled, “The Academy’s fulfillment of protocol that demanded death in the face of surrender.” He paused again, here, gathering his thoughts as he entertained the possibility that he could not reach some of command because they had also, in fact, followed that same protocol.

“Of the commanders I have spoken with, none have expressed interest in defection or surrender. Of the old guard, which would have included Engell, most perished in the battle on Exegol. What is left are captains and self-proclaimed generals who would have arose to power in the face of a void in command. We can assume they are consolidating what power they have left, but without clear leadership they only have First Order bylaws to guide them, and the infighting resulting from the lack of a strong leader will continue to allow the breakdown of whatever command structure is left. They will be retreating, likely hunting down what First Order ships and tech are left to commandeer for themselves.”

Which brought him to his greatest fear, “While it is possible that other factions of the First Order have also followed protocol as the Academy did, from my experience, it would be the old guard who would abide by these standards of conduct. Which leaves the younger generation of First Order officers and crew, and they should be where our resources are directed. Unfortunately, these men and women have gone dark, their comms unreachable, and I can only assume it is because they are fleeing from internal conflict.”

As Hux voiced the conclusions he and Organa had already discussed, he realized then, that the First Order’s fall had been inevitable. The design had always been in place, that it would end like this, in a futile last stand amongst itself, as Palpatine arose to fill the gap left in command, patch the holes with his own Sith fleet to rule the galaxy under an iron fist of terror. Hux had never stood a chance. None of them had – dreams of a galaxy united by order, the First Order, were the line his generation had been fed. It had all been a lie.

Hux looked around the room, noted the faces at the table, how most would not meet his eyes, how others did with a defiance Hux was no longer sure he deserved. For the first time since his decision to spy, Hux felt like his and Resistance goals had aligned, and now he needed their help, because he could not do this on his own.

“I am not well versed in what resources the Resistance has to offer, but if we have any hope to reach out to what is left of the First Order, it will be in those ships that have disappeared from the fray. They will be hunted, on the run or hiding, and unlikely to trust, but I do believe they, like the Finalizer, are looking for safety and will be open to negotiation.” _Help me_ , he wanted to ask, but the words that came out were convoluted, cloaked in a façade of command that tasted stale on his tongue.

Those at the table remained silent, but more had looked up to glance at him – Rey with her young face and too-wise eyes, particularly ardent to his words, watched him now with an acute awareness that made him feel exposed – but also the stormtrooper defector, FN-2187 – Finn - whose gaze had narrowed into a strained visage of concentration, as if he couldn’t parse Hux’s words with the man he knew. It was with him that Hux felt the most kinship, because even he could not say when he had gone from General Hux of the First Order to reluctant Resistance defector, but that’s how he felt then, in that moment. The truth of it crashed upon him, suddenly, as he sat at the table surrounded by former enemies, and Hux had to removed his hands from the table top lest everyone see how they trembled.

“Thank you, General.” Organa’s voice was a soft touch against his thoughts, force tinged, but mindful. Desperately, Hux wanted to accept the comfort, but he drew away from the sensation, drew further into himself. “I believe that amongst all the talent present here, we’ll be able to find a way to successfully reach those in the Order most likely to accept our aid. If any of you have an idea, please feel free to approach me or General Hux, either of us will be happy to hear your proposal. With that, you are all dismissed, thank you as always for your service.”

The silence in the room that had begun to feel so oppressive broke in the burst of an instant. In the commotion of the space he felt Dameron’s hand reach for his under the table, a knowing touch that Hux clung to, literally and metaphorically. Dameron leaned closer still, voice pitched low and breath tickling his ear, “You sounded good, I think you got through to them.”

Hux dropped his head, stared at the hands clasped together in his lap, watched as much as felt how Dameron’s thumb rubbed small circles into the leather between thumb and palm. “My public speaking ability is hardly an ineptitude.” Hux murmured the words, felt his face grow warm from Dameron’s offhand compliment. “You also presented yourself well, Dameron.”

“Wow, thanks Hugs, I mean it.” Dameron’s grin split Hux open and settled into his cracks, filling them with a blinding luminescence he was momentarily afraid the others could see. “Leia asked that we wait behind after the debriefing, she has something to discuss with us.”

Though Hux was no force user, he had in inkling of the conversation that was coming, and he steeled himself with the resolve that, in this, he would not show weakness. He dropped his head in a curt nod, reserving his words for when they were needed the most.

After the room had emptied and it was only Organa and Rey left behind, their figures bent over into their own semblance of a private conversation, Hux felt the first touch of a force presence he had not sensed in weeks. It reached out to him in a tentative wave and Hux felt his body seize, like a ship on high alert, locking out all systems but those critical to his basic functions, his survival. The reptilian part of his brain, that coil of insentience that lived inside all of them in a rudimentary thread that connected the basest instincts to the most perverse actions, twined taunt and then frayed, filament by filament. All the strength Hux had reserved for this inevitable moment was lost to the ether, abandoning him the moment he needed it the most. _Weak, petulant boy – how do you expect me to make you into a man?_

Instinct bade Hux push his chair away from the table, his hand slipping from Dameron’s faster than he could pull him back. And then he was on his feet, fleeing the room just as Kylo Ren’s shadowed shape emerged from the primordial quicksand of time, filling the doorway of which he was headed, blocking his retreat and trapping him inside a physical and existential space outside of himself. It felt as if Hux’s spirit had removed itself from his body and he could only watch from afar.

Voices, distant, spoke over his noise filled thoughts. Hux watched as his body took one, two steps back, until Dameron was back at his side, hands there to steady him.

“Ben, you were supposed to _wait_ ,” Rey. She was between them now, her words chiding but her body language open, friendly. “We wanted to tell General Hux first.”

“ _General_ Hux?” Ren turned the word inside out, as if Hux’s position had always only been a joke to him, now more than ever. Hux recoiled, the bulk of his anxiety turning on itself, all the memories of Ren’s childish antics aboard the Finalizer rushing back in a tidal wave of unbridled _anger_.

“ _Ben_.” Rey admonished, and Hux was struck, at this careful teetering treatment, as if everyone in the room expected him to break down on the spot - _again_. But Hux had not made it as far as he had, as high in the ranks of the First Order, without the fastidious control of his faculties, particularly when under emotional and physical duress. He stoked the bloom of rage, nursed its needy greed, feeling the slow return of his body in the heady plume of anger’s heat.

Hux shrugged off Dameron’s grip, avoiding his eyes and stepping outside his reach and turning on Ren as quickly as the man had appeared. “Hello, _Ben_. I see they’ve finally let you out of your cage. Is your neutering complete then? I heard it was quite the messy operation.”

But Ren looked away, _ignored him_ , turning instead to Rey and saying, “I thought you said he’d changed?”

And that, sent Hux into a spiraling descent of which he could not control. Whatever _this_ was, whatever Ren was here for, Hux wanted no part in it. He could not stomach that this man, this _man child_ , the absolute bane of his existence, an existence he had sacrificed so much to rid of _him_ , was being thrust back into his life in a capacity that he was expected to accept.

Not in Hux’s wildest nightmares would he have ever seen himself bartering alms with the Resistance leadership, let alone at Kylo Ren’s side. That it was easier to accept a semblance of good will with the enemy, than it was with Ren, spoke so much to the abuse Hux knew he had suffered. He felt isolated in the idea that Ren was now Ben, and that these people believed _this_ man could shuck the identity which had befouled them for years, and then welcome him back with open arms. Hux bristled with the unfairness of it, the double standard of which the universe again and again beset upon him. Where abuse was rewarded while the abused were left behind to rot.

Hux slipped past Ren, resisted the urge to check his shoulder with his own, just wanting to be _away_ and finding the shortest path out was through the doorway of which Ren blocked.

Organa’s words lingered in the back of his mind. _He’s damaged you_. How little they all knew, that, in the grand scheme of those in Hux’s life who had caused him harm, Ren was just one more abuser in a long lineage. Hux wondered, not for the first time, what it was about himself that drew the attention of men like his father, like Snoke and Ren. What fatal flaw of personality exposed him as a target, as easy prey? Hux had spent his whole life ensuring he was never seen as weak, pursuing power like he was owed it, convincing himself it was the only way to escape those in his life who would otherwise sacrifice him for their own. It had not worked. Not with his father. Not with Snoke. And not with Ren.

Hux slipped into the crowd around him, head hung low and stride long, walking without a destination, simply aiming to get _away_.

As Hux put distance between himself and Kylo Ren, the fog of his anger and panic receded along with the sensation of Ren’s force touch. A bone deep exhaustion was left in its wake, as if his very life force had been drained. Heedless, Hux walked on, without aim, without direction. The halls of the Resistance base were full, so unlike the Star Destroyers he had called home. Always filled to bursting, as if the people were lost in a constant push and pull through life, on their way but never arriving at a destination, because their goals felt entirely reactionary to whatever First Order plot they were spoiling. Hux wondered, again and again, how he had ended up here, despite how he now understood his life had been nothing but a long dead dream in futility. That even in this, his defection - an action that literally removed him from the only life he had ever known, that should have been, short of death, a decision of undeniable personal agency - he had lost control so completely.

The entrance to the mess hall loomed before him, and though Hux had no desire to be around people, he thought that maybe, amongst them, he could abdicate his identity and find safety in the masses. He hedged the threshold, observing the filled banquet tables, and it struck him, how the edges had blurred. What two weeks before had been a perfect divide between First Order and Resistance, now was a mixing, a borderline amalgamation of people that included not just stormtroopers and Order crew intermingling, but the presence of the Resistance as well. Like a river converging with the ocean, deltas of people swept through the room, little channels of conversation including men, women, and sentient species alike, where the weft of one man’s uniform no longer marked him with an identity he could not escape.

In this mingling of people, Hux saw a complete dismantling of First Order ideals. Where stormtroopers and crew once segregated, first due to a protocol’s directive, and then under an engendered sense of familiarity, they now came together in the forge of shared circumstance; Where Resistance and First Order had once been on opposite sides of a galaxy wide conflict, and then on opposite sides of a mess hall room, they now merged together in a fluid fluxing of peoples, conversing with the enemy in a tentative test in truce and finding far more than just a simple commonality of war.

Hux didn’t know when it had happened. While he had avoided mess during Dameron and Phasma’s absence, limiting his exposure to off-peak hours, and typically taking his tray back to Dameron’s quarters – that didn’t explain _this_ , and how over the course of almost two weeks, these people could come together. He wondered, as a stormtrooper looked up from the table he sat at, saw him, only to glance at the Resistance men across from him and stand stiffly from his seat to slip away, if Hux’s very presence was what had kept this from happening sooner.

Alternatively, that his increasing absence had opened the space up to the very opportunity.

The realization that he could have been holding these men and women back from asserting a sense of agency upon their circumstances left Hux with the strangest sensation of guilt. That he understood at all the empathy he felt for his crew - at least in the capacity of accepting that this was now their life, the Resistance their home, or at least somewhere safe for them to lick their wounds - should have been more surprising. But it wasn’t until Hux laid eyes on Mitaka, that he truly understood what this intermingling of sides meant.

There was a table of Resistance officers Hux only recognized because FN-2187 had just seated himself there, along with the small engineer girl, Tico. Here was where Mitaka sat, amongst these higher ranking Resistance, alongside who, Hux would have supposed, were a man and woman that would be the least likely to welcome a First Order officer into their fold.

Never before had Hux observed Mitaka in such frank ease: his uniform was well-pressed but the collar loosened, unbuttoned in the heat of the jungle climate even as the environmental conditioners worked overtime to keep the base cool. He had forgone the hat which marked his high station, instead pulling his hair back into a low ponytail, because it had at some point grown longer than First Order discipline allowed. And he was smiling, laughing with a Resistance officer that sat across from him, engaged in friendly conversation as if the two had known each other since they were young.

Hux considered, as he examined his emotions, that he didn’t feel betrayed, or upset. He felt glad for Mitaka, who looked, for perhaps the first time Hux had known him, genuinely happy.

But then a Resistance man sat down beside him, slid a tray onto the table between them while leaning over to place the most delicate, chaste, _kiss_ upon Mitaka’s cheekbone.

Hux felt his body go cold.

Mitaka was smiling again, wider this time, hand on the man’s face as he playfully pushed him away. A blush flared to life high across his cheekbones as he looked at the man as if the world was held in his eyes, and Hux knew, _knew_ , that somehow, at some point, he had been left behind.

_They don’t need you._

And Hux _smothered_ the thought with the last remaining dredges of strength he had, instead stepping away from the mess hall, retreating into the crowded corridor, mind flayed with the idea that he was an intruder here, unwelcomed and untrusted, a remnant of a past that these people had already moved on from. Hux stumbled to the side of the hallway, eyes unseeing the crowd around him, breath coming fast and shallow, sweat beading down the length of his spine. The image of Mitaka’s kiss burned into the backs of his eyelids, emerging every time he blinked, lingering in his mind’s eye as he came to rest against the cinderblock wall. He pressed his hand to the cool cement as he paused to catch his breath, but still it overwhelmed him, left him feeling as if his body and brain had betrayed him to this all-consuming obscene _want_.

 _I want that_.

The words came, unbidden, to the surface of his thoughts.

And then Poe Dameron appeared before him, as if summoned by the power of his want alone.

“Shit, _Hux._ ” Hux wondered if Poe could see into him, could understand, because by the way his hands settled on him in all the right places Hux thought he must. A hand at his waist, intimate and possessive, the other slipping over his glove to grip his fingers, “Come on, come with me.”

Poe pulled him back into the milling corridor, keeping him close, side by side as they slipped through the crowd and deeper into the base. Hux didn’t know where they were going, didn’t have the faculties about him to take notice of the turns they made, the path Poe took. His mind was consumed with the image of Mitaka, but instead now it was him seated at the table, and it was Poe sliding a tray between them, placing a chaste kiss on his cheek only for Hux to turn into it, capture Poe’s lips in a soft press, if only to feel how his smile spread across his lips. Hux submersed himself in the image, felt a deeply rooted knot unraveling, releasing a torrent of emotion that flooded him, as if he had, all this time, been a man drowning and had only just broken the surface to know the taste of air.

Hux’s heart thundered into a bone-rattling pound. He recognized, belatedly, that Poe had pulled them off to the side of the corridor again, here where the crowds were thinner. Back against the cool wall, Poe’s wider bulk hid what it could from wandering eyes.

“Hux, can you make it back to our room?” Poe’s voice bottomed out in the pit of him, coiling there in a fevered heat, twisting his gut into a tangled nest. Hux shook his head in the negative. “Kriff, alright-“

Suddenly, he was being whisked into a darkened room, the hydraulic door sealing out the noise of the corridor and consuming him in an ambient glow of which Hux found immediate comfort. In the absence of bright light and sound, calm suffused him. As if he were back in deep space aboard a Star Destroyer, he could feel the world coming back into place in pieces. Hux breathed in deeply, sighing out the tension that had threatened to overwhelm him, breathing in a control which was becoming more and more elusive.

Poe was there, pushing him against the wall. Here, outside the prying eyes of the base, he was free to crowd into Hux, and so he did. His hands were gentle but firm as they moved over him – not intimately, as Hux wanted – but carefully, as he checked Hux’s pulse, pressed the back of his hand to his forehead, and began the now almost familiar process of removing Hux’s gloves.

“We have got to get you something else to wear, you’re burning up again.” Poe murmured the words into the darkness and Hux followed them to their source, staring at Poe’s lips as they moved, remembering how they felt against his, how much he yearned to feel them again.

“I like that you feel the need to constantly keep undressing me,” Even as the words left him Hux felt the blush heat his face. This was the most forward he had been yet, a direct admission of desire, with Poe, with anyone, and Hux was unsure if he hadn’t just embarrassed himself. Reluctantly, Hux lifted his eyes to meet Poe’s.

Poe, it seemed, did not think so, “Oh yeah?” Time slowed as Poe examined his face, settling his heavy gaze onto Hux and peeling him back layer by layer. Whatever he found there caused his eyebrow to raise, “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

Hux nodded his head and Poe cursed, pulling away just enough to push a hand through his hair, leaving it more mussed than before. When he met Hux’s eyes again there was a resolve there, more concern than determination. Hux felt his stomach flip as Poe leaned in close, pushing him further into the wall, as if his weight against him was all that was keeping Hux upright. “I need to know you’re okay, Hugs. You scared me back there.”

The welcoming weight of Poe against him left Hux breathless, and he turned into it, into him. He closed his eyes and dropped his head, breathing in the scent of Poe, all leather and engine grease and something uniquely warm and musky underneath it all. “I was…taken by surprise, that’s all.”

The _hmm_ that left Poe settled deep inside him, filling an emptiness Hux had never known existed. He liked the sound of Poe’s voice, liked how he fawned over him, always asking questions that made Hux feel as if he mattered. “Yeah, I was surprised too. But Hux,” here Poe paused, a finger coming up under his chin, lifting his face so Hux met his eyes. “You’re gonna have to tell me what you want.”

Such a simple question, but Hux felt humbled before it, as if the admission would end everything, send Poe out the door laughing, because Hux _wanted_ Poe, but who could want _him_. No one had ever wanted Armitage Hux.

 _He does._ And Hux wasn’t sure if he had anything left to loose.

“I want you.” The words were no more than a whisper, but Poe heard him, and he _smiled_.

Poe maneuvered himself into a place against Hux that was just enough - a knee between Hux’s, nudging them apart just so – a hand at his waist, trailing the seam it found there, down to where it could settle on Hux’s hip. The touches were suggestive, but not a push – instead ideas, ones that Hux could choose to pursue or not. “We’re going to talk about this, you know. Not like last time. Is that alright?”

Hux nodded, reaching up to place a tentative touch to Poe’s cheek, the bare tips of his fingertips catching on the stubble there.

“Words, Hux.” Poe breathed, reaching up to grasp his hand in his own, bringing it to his lips instead. His dark eyes bored into him, waiting, expectant.

“Yes, alright.” Hux shivered as Poe sighed against his fingertips, eyes dropping down as he turned Hux’s palm over and pressed his cheek into the cup of it, his own hand cradling Hux’s as if it were something very precious.

“Stars I love your hands,” Poe nuzzled into his palm like a cat seeking affection, and Hux marveled at how sensitive he was here, the juxtaposition of the scratch of his stubble and the gentle soft cradle of his hand. He felt trapped, in the most wonderful way possible.

When Poe dropped a kiss to his inner wrist, Hux’s breath stuttered in a sharp inhale, and when Poe turned that kiss into a tiny nip, teeth a bared pressure against the skin there, Hux let that breath go in a wavering whimper. Poe _grinned_ into his skin, warm and eager, and then laved the area with a hot wet tongue, soothing over a bite that had not hurt, drawing a sound out of Hux he had no idea had been hiding inside him.

But then Poe pulled away, his grip on Hux’s hand flexing as he entangled their fingers. Poe’s free hand reached up and smoothed down his arm to do the same with his other, capturing both and holding Hux still as he leaned into his space. The heat of him rolled over Hux, his presence pulsing into him through proximity alone, as if he were an exposed nerve ending come too close to the sun.

Voice low and thoughtful, Poe said, “Do you know how much I want you?”

A shudder rolled through Hux’s body at Poe’s words, and he could not help it when his eyes slipped shut. Images of what Poe’s _want_ entailed consumed him, visions and sensations assaulting his imagination in a series of broken clips, memories yet to be made but which Hux felt he had already lived. He was suddenly, irrevocable _hard_ , and the intensity of his arousal took him aback, so that he was left struggling just to breath.

“Breath, Hux, you’re alright,” Poe laughed into the space between them, not mocking, but affectionate, a gentle tease at how overwhelmed Hux had become over simple words and a tender touch. “I’m sorry if this is too much-“

“No, I’m-“ Hux choked on his words, panicked as Poe drew back, afraid he would stop, afraid he would be abandoned like this, halfway undone, the pieces of him spilling apart because Poe was all that was keeping him together. And in this panic, he felt the knot in his throat uncoil, released in a flood of words.

“I’m alright. I want this. I just don’t know what-“ Hux broke off, strained at what he was trying to put voice to, of how to admit to this man that he had very little experience, that he wasn’t even sure what it was he wanted, or what it was he liked. “Touch me, _please._ ”

“I will,” Poe affirmed, and here his voice wavered too, struck through with an emotion that left Hux shivering. “But I want to know what you’re okay with. I don’t want to hurt you, even on accident, do you understand that?”

“Yes.” Hux breathed, “Yes, I understand.”

“Ok- good. That’s good,” Poe broke off, shifting his weight against Hux as he brought their hands up between them, retaining his hold as he stroked his thumbs over his knuckles. “You don’t have to answer this with words, but if I’m reading you wrong just tell me. You don’t have much experience with intimacy, is that right?”

Hux nodded, confirming Poe’s suspicions and thankful he didn’t make him explain himself. A life like his did not leave room for relationships, and an upbringing like his did not allow space for him to explore the parts of his sexuality that had laid dormant for so long. But Poe offered no judgement, instead he leaned into Hux, released a hand so he could stroke his own along Hux’s jaw, drawing him closer.

“If I do anything you don’t like, will you tell me?” The words were murmured over Hux’s mouth, and he breathed them in, drank in what they meant.

“Yes.” The word left Hux in a whisper, and along with it the last of the walls he had built, the lion brought down by a mouse.

When Poe kissed him, it felt as if the maw of the world split open and swallowed him whole.

Poe’s lips were soft, warm and supple, moving over Hux in a yielding caress so that he could match him, could move along with him, at a pace he could control if he chose to. Hux chose not to. He submitted to Poe’s kiss in a way he had never submitted to anything before in his life, and it was like letting go of something inside him that no longer served a purpose – some archaic thing that had long ago become obsolete, a glitch in his code, now restored to order.

Hux felt himself unravelling, consumed by the feelings swelling to life inside him - need and the relief in equal parts and then something he couldn’t name but felt so much like belonging. His breath hitched into the kiss, and he pressed a shaking hand to Poe’s chest to tangle his fingers into the worn fabric of his shirt, anchoring himself in this moment, suddenly so afraid it would end, would be swept out from under him and taken away in the cyclone of structure and purpose that he had lived his life in service to.

When Poe pulled back it was only the fraction of space needed to give Hux space to breath. He felt the air coming quick and shallow, the race of his pulse and the pressure building in his throat coalescing into a soft wavering moan.

“Stars, Hux- You’re alright.” Poe stroked his fingers along Hux’s jaw, so soothing, a gentle touch paired with gentle words that Hux had never before known. Both thrilled him as much as the kiss had. And then Poe’s lips were against his again, nudging them apart, and it felt like a door opening inside him, of which only Poe had a key. He wasted no time. Poe licked into Hux, sliding along his tongue, curling over and under, a slow mapping of him that left Hux raw and shaking, gasping against the seal of Poe’s mouth, consumed by this tender visceral assault.

And then Poe shifted closer, sliding his thigh fully between Hux’s, the muscled girth of it spreading Hux’s legs wide, and he _trembled_. “This okay?” Poe asked even as he moved against Hux, hands traveling down his sides to settle on his hips, holding him steady as he _pressed_ his thigh into his erection.

Hux made a sound, broken and keening. Poe answered him with a low moan that burrowed inside Hux’s chest and settled deep.

But the touch was fleeting, just enough to leave him shaking. Again, a suggestion, an offering, an idea Hux could choose to pursue. He _wanted_ it. His shoulders curled away from the wall as his body chased the sensation. _Words, Hux._

“ _Yes, yes_.” Hux breathed. Trembling fingers twisting tighter into the fabric of Poe’s shirt, desperate for purchase, as he sank his own weight onto Poe’s thigh in search of that pressure again.

“Yeah?” Poe met him there, holding him fast and showing him what to do. “Here- like this.” And then he was guiding Hux against him, hands on his hips - gentle rolling motions that brought them together in a slow undulating rhythm. Hux pressed his lips together, tried to hold back the sounds that wanted to come out, but his effort was futile. A long low moan spilled out of him, cutting off into a gasp as Poe’s thigh pressed just right, sliding against his erection with a delicious friction.

“ _Stars_ , Hux, that’s good.” Hux clutched at Poe, giving himself over to this thing between them, trusting Poe as he’d never trusted anyone before.

They moved as one, Hux’s hips stuttered against Poe’s thigh, their lips brushing together in a hot open mouth kiss. The tight grip Poe had on his hips was a welcome pressure, his thumbs pressing into the soft divots of his pelvis, following the muscle there in a slow deep caress. Hux didn’t know what else to do with his hands but grip at Poe’s shirt, using the leverage to pull Poe into him with every forward motion, his only anchor in this storming squall of sensation.

It was so much, almost too much, that Hux had to break away from their kiss lest he be swept away entirely. His face was feverishly hot, he could feel the blood pooling high in his cheeks, low in his pelvis, every point of contact a singing source of overstimulation, heady and decadent and rich like a too fine wine. And as he turned his cheek to the cool wall, back arching to press his pelvis to Poe’s, he felt Poe’s erection slide against his own. _Oh, oh-_

Hux nearly came apart then, felt himself plateau at the edge of something he could almost reach out and touch, body strung tight like a ship’s sail in a storm. Poe’s reaction was quick, his hands pushing Hux’s hips away, his shoulders pressing in close to pin Hux to the wall.

“Fuck, Hux- You’re too close.” He gasped into Hux’s chest, forehead pressed to his shoulder, thigh still between Hux’s but no longer rubbing against him. “We shouldn’t do this here. You’re gonna be mad when you realize we’re in a janitor’s closet.”

“What are you-“ Hux’s eyes flew open and he looked at something that wasn’t Poe for the first time in what felt like ages, and saw shelves of cleaning supplies, chemicals and buckets and rags and even a powered down protocol droid in the low ambient light of the room. A janitor’s closet, they were in a _janitor’s closet_.

A long sad sound escaped his throat as he felt himself ground back into reality in a violent crash. Poe was pressed against him, face buried in his neck, hands still gripping his hips, and Hux could feel the breathy puffs of air against his skin as Poe _laughed_.

“You think this is _funny_?” Hux clutched Poe to him, but he could feel himself fighting his own urge to devolve into a manic mirth – fighting the urge to _scream_.

“Laughing keeps me from crying, Hugs.” And though Poe said it like it was a joke - and maybe it was, right then and there - Hux heard the ring of truth in his words. It tugged at something inside Hux, his own memories of Poe’s grinning guileless face and deep chuckles subverted with the question of what that all hid, because Poe was so much more than the plucky pilot hero the Resistance painted him as.

A small emotion toiled away in the pit of Hux, an affection that had nothing to do with lust or desire or want, and everything to do with the man in his arms.

“I promise,” Poe murmured out into his shoulder, “I’ll make this up to you, Hux.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Hux untangled his hands from Poe’s shirt, smoothing them up over his shoulders to touch his face, drawing Poe’s eyes up to meet his, “Poe.”

The light caught Poe’s eyes as they stared into Hux, wide with surprise and something else that spilled from Poe in waves, made his hands tug Hux closer and his mouth find his again in a simple sweet caress.

“ _Armitage,_ ” Poe breathed his name over his lips like it were something forbidden - a prayer, a promise – and then he grinned into him, beaming and bright and so much more than what Hux deserved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm weak trash and not above begging for comments ♥


	5. Armistice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, we've reached smut and it's obscene with feels. I don't even know where it begins and where it ends. Enjoy?

The speeder had been a gift from his father.

Back after, well, after _she_ died, Kes had gone ahead and convinced himself that the solution to his and Poe’s grief was a project – and that had been the birth of Chirrup, a swoop style jumpspeeder that had been more spare parts than vehicle when Kes had hauled her home one afternoon.

They’d spent the summer stripping her down to the frame, flushing the air brakes, cleaning out the exhaust system, replacing carbon brushes, reinforcing the armor with a layer of liquid durasteel, and overhauling the fuel system to run off a smart converter that allowed Poe to adjust for most any type of liquid compound available. They’d put days and weeks and months of their lives into the restoration, the tears they would have shed for Shara redirected to mourning the newly rebuilt LT engine which blew a head gasket the first time they gassed her up; and again when Poe accidentally swapped the wires on the speed controller and had spent all of 30 seconds in an out of control tail spin that only ended after he collided with a tree.

Eventually, the speeder earned her name; Poe and Kes transforming her into a small spunky jounce of a ship whose custom engine trilled in song when she flew – _chirrups_ \- as Kes had called them, and thus Chirrup was born. Poe had spent the better part of his teen years exploring Yavin-IV on the back of Chirrup, beating his friends in reckless late night pod races Kes turned a blind eye to, and then later she saved his ass more times than he could count during his spice running days. They’d spent time apart during his Naval career, but were reunited again when Poe left to join the Resistance. Kes had insisted Poe take her along, explaining that the Resistance needed whatever ships they could get, though Poe suspected it was more that Kes didn’t have the heart to watch Chirrup rust away in the garage, alone and forgotten, because what use did Kes have for a wild swoop speeder?

And it reminded him of _her._

Capping the newly bled brake line, Poe called up to BB-8, “Give her some gas BB!” And smiled as the trilling _whir_ of her engine purred to life. The speeder lifted off, hovering over the floor in a gentle buoyant bounce, the edges of her trembling with the need to _fly._ Then BB hit the air brake and her nose dipped, the negative propulsion panels fanning out wide like an insect unfurling its wings. _Perfect_.

“Thanks BB, she’s lookin’ good.” BB-8 whooped in response, just as excited as Poe to see Chirrup alive and singing again.

Sliding out from beneath the engine compartment, Poe climbed to his feet and took a moment to run a hand along the shielding covering Chirrup’s durasteel housing. She would need a new paint job soon, the twenty-year-old orange and gray paint flaking enough to expose the primer underneath, but her bones were solid, her engine strong, her seals tight. Poe smiled to himself, lost in the memory of her, of a time in his life when everything felt so simple - thought fondly of the possibility that he might return to that simple sweet life again, one day, maybe sooner rather than later.

And when Hux entered the hangar bay, the strap of a duffle bag slung over his shoulder, steps quick with a haste to cross the room before the engineering team and flight crew took notice of him, Poe added him to the daydream of his thoughts – imagined what that simple sweet life might look like with Armitage Hux by his side.

“Heya.” Poe greeted Hux with an easy swagger. Leaning his hip against the speeder and folding his arms across his chest, he eyed Hux up and down as if seeing him for the first time. All things considered, he entertained the idea that he wasn’t that far off the mark, because Hux stood before him bereft of his uniform, dressed down in the training fatigues that had come out of that treasure chest of his. The clothing hugged him in a natural way that left Poe breathless: ribbed shirt sleeves pushed up to expose his pale forearms, pants slung low on his hips, held in place by nothing but the elastin waistband. And his red hair hung loose, just a little bit of pumice to keep it from falling into his eyes, which were focused at some spot on Poe’s face but not his eyes-

“Dameron,” Hux said, snapping him out of the tangent of his wandering thoughts, hand held aloft to tap a finger against his own cheek, “You have something, right there.”

Poe’s face alit with a smile and he took a step towards Hux. Eyebrow raised, completely ignoring the grease on his cheek that was causing Hux such discomfort, he savored the twisted expression on Hux’s face as he imagined his internal struggle to not reach out and wipe Poe’s cheek clean himself. “Did you bring everything you need?”

Hux’s frown deepened, eyes finally meeting Poe’s in an accusing glare, “How am I to know what to bring when I don’t even know where we’re going?”

“We’re not going anywhere,” Poe laughed, “We’re just going, so you bring what you need.”

“You’re not making sense, Dameron.”

“You’ll understand when we get there.” The grin _split_ his face.

“ _Now_ you’re talking in circles.” The grip Hux had on the duffle strap looked like it might have strangled something living. Poe laughed, loud and easy; he couldn’t contain himself in the face of Hux’s unrestrained frustration. Several of the mechanics looked their way and Poe caught the stares, noticed the way they lingered on Hux, then the way they slid to him. Poe met their eyes over the line of Hux’s shoulder, a challenge each turned away from, and he was glad Hux’s back was to them so he did not have to see.

Hux’s discomfort at being caught out of his uniform was already well established. That he was unused to being dressed down to the point of such casual efficiency would only be exacerbated if he knew people were staring. No matter that Poe suspected their stares had less to do with what Hux was wearing and more that the two of them were there together - openly honest with their intentions to take leave together.

But, Poe had insisted Hux forgo decorum and change before heading out because there was no way he was going on a speeder ride with Hux in that uniform. Not unless he wanted to spend their three days camping playing nurse for Hux after another round of heat stroke.

Well, maybe the idea wasn’t _completely_ terrible…

Poe finished the final flight safety checks, the same ones he’d been performing on Chirrup for the last two decades, going through his mental list and ticking off each in a habit that was more ritual than mechanical. Poe didn’t treat any of his other ships with such mindful care, but Chirrup was different, and the safety checks were a leftover remnant of a period of time that had crafted Poe’s love for flying. Hux followed along from a distance, watching Poe with a keen interest. His eyes trailed the delicate motions of Poe’s fingers over the instrument panel, the intentional way he adjusted the tail fins so they laid just right across the rear thrusters, the way the palm of his hand drew along the smooth swell of her seat.

She’d carry two comfortably - a feature his father had insisted on that, at the time, so long ago, a younger Poe had thought unnecessary. Now Poe admired his father’s foresight, promised to thank him later, would make a point of it, now that he could allow himself the space to envision what his future might hold.

Poe’s eyes slid back to Hux, again imagining what that future might look like with him in it - held the idea close, careful and protected in the harbor of his heart.

“Ready to head out?” Poe asked as he took the duffle from Hux, stowing it away beneath the seat along with the supplies he’d gathered for their trip.

“I still can’t quite believe you’ve managed this,” Hux muttered as he kept close to Poe’s side, “It’s irresponsible, leaving at a time like this.”

“Why? We deserve time off as much as the next person.” Poe secured the cargo latches, making one last mental check of their supplies. “The base can get on without us for a few days. Believe me, they’ll never notice we’re gone.”

Hux eyed him warily, “Organa didn’t seem to think so.”

“Leia was more concerned she was losing you rather than me, so yeah, maybe you’re right.” Poe grinned at Hux, turned around to lean back again the speeder, hand reaching out to take hold of Hux’s own and pulling him a step closer. “I leave you alone for two weeks and you’re already running the place.”

Hux stood stiff, staring down at their joined hands, before his eyes slid off to the side, eying the busy hangar beyond them. “Not here, Dameron. Someone will see.”

“Yeah? So let them.” Poe rubbed circles into Hux’s fingertips. He was still wearing those gloves, Poe found he didn’t mind so much, it just meant he’d get the opportunity to take them off, later.

A blush was creeping across Hux’s nose, so Poe knew he’d reached his limit. He released Hux’s hand with a gentle squeeze and watched as Hux pulled it in close, cradled it against his stomach, fingers curling in to rub together, mimicking the motions that Poe’s own had pressed into them. It occurred to him that Hux didn’t realize what he was doing. Poe’s heart tugged itself into a skipping beat.

Still, Hux continued, “You have a reputation to uphold.”

“ _Reputation?_ _”_ Poe laughed, incredulous, “What, gotta stay available so everyone keeps thinking they’ve got a chance? You don’t think the Resistance can recruit people without my beautiful single self?”

“You certainly hold yourself in high regard.” Hux deadpanned, but Poe saw the smile tugging at the corners of his lips, returned it with a grin of his own. He didn’t push the issue, because Poe suspected Hux understood the deflection – that he wouldn’t hear of how Hux thought his proximity would tarnish Poe’s clout with the Resistance, with the New Republic, with his friends and family and comrades and strangers.

 _Starkiller._ Poe heard the whispers still, said under breath in passing, tainted as much with fear as disgust. He could only imagine how it all weighed on Hux, and how he couldn’t imagine sharing that weight with anyone else - especially not Poe, the hero of the Resistance. But Poe would take on what he could and alleviate the rest by being a constant reminder that Hux was not that single faceted villain the Resistance had painted him as, no matter what people whispered.

“Let’s get out of here,” Poe breathed, voice low, private, for Hux only.

They left the base behind, Ajan Kloss unfolding before them in a rolling scenescape of emerald jungle and cloud painted sky. The early-morning light dappled the forest floor, setting their way alight in a shifting sparkle of sunbeam and shadow. Poe followed a well-worn path he had discovered months ago, hedging the edge of the jungle’s shrub line where the ground become less swamp and more solid, though not yet swallowed by the denser foliage.

Despite how Ajan Kloss might appear from the comfort of the base, she was not nearly as savage nor wild as her reputation might lend her. In fact, Poe suspected that whatever former civilization had cultivated her lands had done so from a place of comfort. He and Chirrup had traveled across hundreds of kilometers of her surface and discovered evidence of her former life: a tameness in the treeless meadows that bespoke a deforesting project that had spanned thousands of acres of her surface - innumerous overgrown canals that still to that day irrigated mountain runoff through fields of tall swaying grasses, supporting an ecosystem of flora and fauna that had very few apex predators larger than your typical loth cat – and then there were the ruins, tall formless structures that had wasted away with the passing of the seasons, their memories lost to the sundown of time.

Contrary to what he’d told Hux, Poe _did_ have a destination in mind. The mountains to the south stretched as far as the sea, terminating in a sharp cliff side that held the open ocean at bay. Poe supposed if anywhere on Ajan Kloss lived up to its savage reputation it was her ocean. The white capped water that crushed over the sea walls held creatures Poe didn’t have names for. Poe hadn’t understood what he’d seen, that first time - thought it were the shadow of a passing cloud rather than the massive gliding form of a living creature – but then they kept appearing, large and shadowy beneath the swelling waves, skimming the surface in a tease of the senses.

But it wasn’t just the sea creatures Poe wanted Hux to see, but also the cascading mountain waterfalls, the cool swimming ponds fed by the ice capped peaks, the steaming hot springs warmed by the still active magma hidden deep beneath the surface crust - all surrounded by the jungle majesty of Ajan Kloss’s mountain range.

Chirrup trembled beneath Poe, fighting against his careful maneuvering as he picked his way through the trees and gave Hux time to adjust to her handling, and adjust to riding passenger behind Poe. By the way his hands gripped Poe’s waist with an unwavering tenacity, Poe could only guess riding second on a speeder was not something Hux was accustomed to.

Throwing a glance over his shoulder but only seeing a mass of whipped up red hair – Hux had buried his face in Poe’s shoulder – he shouted, “You doing okay back there?” The trill of Chirrup’s engine almost drowned out his voice, but Hux heard him, lifted his head and leveled a _glare_ at Poe.

“You pilot like a maniac!“ Hux shouted into his ear, voice hitched up high and panicked and Poe _laughed_ , dodging around a tree trunk that was nearly half as wide as the Falcon. Shifting the speeder into a lower gear as the terrain before them slipped down in a gentle decline, Poe skimmed the line of foliage along a short drop off into a creek bed as the valley the base was built at the edge of swallowed the jungle whole.

“It’s the terrain, we’ll be out of this swamp soon, then you’ll see what she can really do.”

“That’s not what I meant, Dameron!” Hux’s hands had crept further around Poe’s waist, pulling on Poe as he tried to shift their weight back out of the steep decline. Hux’s body was stiff with a rigidity that bordered on dangerous when it came to riding speeders. As much as Poe wanted to savor the death grip Hux had on him, he could nearly taste Hux’s fear as his breath hit his ear hot and fast - and Chirrup was fighting against him, upset at the unbalanced weight and lack of speed.

“Ya gotta trust me, Hux,” Poe cajoled, those words becoming ever familiar, “Lean into me, try to follow the way I move my body weight, it’ll make you feel safer, I promise.”

Hux made a snuffing sound into his ear before burying his face into Poe’s shoulder again, but Poe could feel when his body relaxed. He took Poe’s advice at face value and pressed against him from hips to shoulder, mimicking Poe when he leaned forward, weight moving over Chirrup’s tapered nose.

“That’s better!” Poe shouted, “I’m gonna turn up here, follow my lead, okay?”

The only response Poe got was the clutching of Hux’s hands at his stomach. It would have to do.

When Poe leaned into the sharp turn his center of gravity shifted along with his hips, following Chirrup into the angle she liked best while his shoulders counter-balanced his weight over her outside leading edge. Hux followed along, stiff and clutching, but trusting, giving himself over to Poe’s lead despite what his instincts might otherwise be. They leveled off into a smooth run, Chirrup stabilizing beneath them as naturally as if it were just Poe and her alone. “That’s perfect Hux, you’ve got this!”

Suddenly, they emerged from the forest fen in a burst of light and open air. Before them stretched an expansive meadow. Blossoming tall grass rolled in waves with the breeze, the sun alighting their feathery floral tips in a sparkling dance of color. Chirrup pulled forward underneath him, sensing the even terrain, the open air around her, _demanding_.

“Hold tight, here we go!”

As soon as he felt Hux’s hands tighten on him Poe opened Chirrup up, giving her the space she needed to _fly_.

She jumped forward in a burst of speed, accelerating into a pace that left even Poe breathless, sailing over the grasses, displaced energy parting a sea of delicate blossoms and leaving a cyclone of pollen and petals in their wake. Chirrup’s engine whirred into a gentle trill that settled deep in Poe’s chest, a familiar song Poe knew by heart, could hear during those quiet times when his mind was calm and thought was a distant abstraction - A reminder of all the things good and right with the world.

Poe couldn’t help it when he let out an excited _whoop_ – encouraging Chirrup forward, leaning lightly over her nose as he directed her towards the western edge of the meadow. Hux clutched at him, less desperate now, but just as resolved, arms wrapped tight around his waist and face turned into Poe’s neck so that he could feel his mouth there, against his pulse, hot and moist and thoroughly _distracting_.

But they were approaching the edge of the gorge, the same one that the base was built along. It switched back south as it followed the natural path of the dried riverbed which had once been fed by the mountains that were their destination. Here, the sky swallowed the view, the gorge dropping out into the valley floor where the jungle sprawled unchecked – colors fading into a muted saturation as the morning’s fog settled over the jungle canopy. Only the tallest of the trees broke through the dense mist, the distant mountains parting it like ships in a sea.

Poe pulled them into a coasting slide, trailing the edge of the gorge as closely as he dared. The sun was chasing the heavy fog into an evaporating breath up along the gorge wall, spilling mist over the edge they approached, curling around Chirrup’s stabilizers, making it seem as if they were flying through the clouds themselves.

“Open your eyes, Hux.”

Poe felt it when Hux hesitated, then pulled away, leaving his neck cool and damp in the absence of his touch. Glancing over his shoulder, he watched as Hux turned towards the valley, saw in the way his eyes widened and his mouth slackened when it all settled into him, felt when Hux’s hands relaxed their hold and then clenched tighter than ever before, “ _Oh_.”

Poe laughed, wild with adrenaline, “It’s beautiful, right?”

Hux nodded his head, words lost, gaze roaming over the sight then flickering to Poe, a carefully exposed childlike wonderment in his expression that left Poe breathless and yearning. Hux’s innocence struck Poe with the force of a fist, punching a hole into his chest and letting spill the contents of his heart. It was as if Hux had never taken a moment to slow down and admire the beautiful things in the world, the simple wunderkind ability of nature to outdo itself by virtue of life alone.

Poe slowed the speeder, giving Hux time to take in the view and time for him to gather himself back together, suddenly overwhelmed by the feelings roiling away inside. Gladness and guilt warred against one another as Poe struggled with the idea of Hux’s naivety and who had stolen the child from this man, because it was evident Hux was missing some vitally pivotal experiences that people like Poe took for granted.

For the first time ever in his life piloting Chirrup, he activated her autopilot, releasing the controls to her internal systems so he could slide his hands over Hux’s where they were settled on his waist. He pulled Hux’s arms further around him. Leaning back into his chest and turning his head so he could admire the view alongside Hux, Poe found the closeness they shared reached far deeper than this physical touch. Hux pressed against him, arms tightening as his fingers twisted into Poe’s shirt, head dropping alongside Poe’s, eyelashes fluttering against his cheek.

The embrace was gentle and easy, comfortable in a way none of their encounters had yet been – _comforting_ , but not in a sad way – familiar, Poe decided – steeped in unspoken understandings.

“Armitage,” Poe murmured as he trailed his fingers over the bared forearms wrapped around him, still becoming accustomed to the word, Hux’s _name_. “Armitage.”

If Poe looked he’d see the blush creeping across Hux’s nose, pink and slightly blotchy, but Poe pushed on, “Armitage Hux.”

Hux made a sound, smothered it in Poe’s hair, “That _is_ my name, _Dameron_.”

“Yeah,” Poe breathed out, “I like saying it. What happened to Poe?” He teased, reached a hand up to trail fingers through Hux’s hair, encouraging him closer, turning up to meet him, exhaling a sigh into the space between them.

“Poe,” Hux whispered and Poe could feel the brush of air over his lips, only separated by the distance of a breath.

The kiss was inevitable, had been waiting for its moment for what felt like longer than the very span of time itself. Still, it came slow and sweet, a quiet undoing that left them both grasping for one another. Poe hummed into it, the fingers in Hux’s hair holding him in place as he took the time to commit the sensations to memory. Hux’s lips were soft, pliable against his, parting slightly with each inhale, sipping at the air they shared. It was almost lazy, passionate only in the way Poe’s heart fluttered in his chest, in the way Hux’s arms held him close, trembling at the edge of a withheld yearning. Poe reveled in it, smiled against Hux’s lips and tugged at Hux’s hair as he licked up at him, requesting a deeper permission which Hux was quick to give.

Poe kept the kiss just as slow, just as easy, licking more at Hux’s lips than inside his mouth - tracing the cupid’s bow of his upper lip, following it into the delicate creviced corners and around and around again. Hux moaned against him, mouth open and slack, voice thick with emotion. It prodded something deep inside Poe, a want he’d been happy to nurse below the surface, but now spilled out of him with a desire he could not contain. Hux cut off with a gasp when Poe turned in the seat, pulling out of Hux’s embrace only long enough to swing a leg over the cushion, reversing his position so they faced one another.

“Dameron! The speeder-“

Poe cut him off with another press of his lips, pulling away enough to assure, “It’s okay, she’s got autopilot, trust me.” And then he hooked his hands under Hux’s knees and lifted them over his thighs, pulling Hux into his lap. Hux cried out softly against his mouth, arms coming up over his shoulders and holding tight as his balance was precariously shifted. Poe held Hux steady, his hands on Hux’s waist firm and soothing, rubbing up and down his sides in reassurance. “Think we could fuck like this? Could be fun.”

“ _Poe!_ ” Incredulous, Hux gasped against his lips, but Poe felt the way he submitted, how he gave himself over to Poe as completely as he had yesterday, as he had so many times before, as Poe hoped he would continue to do. Poe silenced him with a kiss, licking deep into Hux’s mouth, a slow thirsty taking that suggested something far more intimate. Hux whimpered, body now shaking, lost to Poe’s claim over him, this meticulously calculated seduction that Hux seemed happy to fall victim to.

Like Poe had brought them out there for a _vacation_.

“I’m gonna make this so good for you, Armitage.”

When Hux _laughed_ into their kiss, it was Poe’s turn to unravel. The sound rooted in the pit of him, echoing through the far reaches of his simple existence, mind and body consumed by the sound, quaking free an emotion he hadn’t felt ever before for anyone, not in his entire life.

“You’re truly insatiable, Poe.” Hux pulled away to murmur. There was a coyness to his stare, his flush fully bloomed, head turned down but eyes lifted to meet Poe’s, lips spreading from a smirk to a _grin_ – Hux transformed into something pure and beautiful then, his smile splitting his face open with an honesty that felt so much like a secret. Poe was lost to it, consumed, as taken as Hux was, just as lost, finally found – finally _seen_.

“ _Armitage_.”

As the wind whipped by them, Chirrup trilling in a gentle sing song below, Poe kissed Armitage again and again. He captured his smile in the curve of his lips and kept it there, his alone – his secret to keep, for as long as Armitage let him – as long as forever.

-

There were moments of Hux’s life that remained with him long after time had assuaged their physical bite. They lingered in the shadows of memories that came in the dark of his mind, filling the absent spaces left when thought abandoned him, when his mind was weakest. At first, the sleep aids he took helped, muted their insistence enough that Hux could find peace if he so chose. But eventually they evolved to haunt his waking thoughts, and Hux found their influence infecting his every action, his every decision.

Anxiety, he was told once, by a First Order medic who treated him after a particularly long span of sleepless nights, when the pills wouldn’t work and his command began to suffer. Therapy had been recommended, and Hux had scoffed at the idea. Because by that point he had already placed the memories at the altar of his ego, convinced that the trauma of his past was the key to his future success.

Sometimes the memories took the voice of Snoke, sometimes Ren – but mostly it was the voice of his father that spoke to him in the dark of his mind.

His childhood had ended as abruptly as it had begun, a quick dying ember in a timeline that left no room for things such as friends, or family or love. Brendol was not a kind man, and he had no interest in raising a child. That Armitage, at the age of 5, still required a level of physical care Brendol was neither interested in nor equipped to provide, meant Armitage had been thrust into the shoes of Hux as soon as he’d been taken from Arkanis. He struggled to find his footing in his new life, much to the dismay of Brendol, whose beatings, at first a purely physical thing, came as a shock to Armitage, whose mother had never laid anything but a kindly hand on him.

His first year within the Order saw him suffering a series of abusive mentorships until he landed at the feet of Rae Sloane. At that time, she represented a savior of sorts. Armitage’s young mind connected her to a motherly figure if only because he didn’t have the experience of life to view her as anything else. But the damage had been done, and his father resented Hux’s sudden favor in the eyes of Sloane, and the abuse had taken on a mental facet that had, in retrospect, likely caused far more damage than any physical beating ever could.

_Pathetic boy, you_ _’ll always be utterly useless._

_Sniveling child, stop your spineless crying._

_Baseborn blood, my only mistake._

_Armitage? Weak and sickly, I fear he_ _’s a waste._

The words harried his every thought and action, leaving behind the roughshod edges of a man who had spent his life fighting tooth and nail to earn his place amongst his peers. Well after his death, Hux still found himself pursuing the goals his father had inspired within him: what had begun as the childhood desperation for a father’s approval, and then a teenager’s determination to prove his father’s conceptions wrong, finally took form as an adult ambition that was as much about power for the sake of glory, as power for the sake of protecting the stability he had finally created for himself.

But now that his stability had crumbled and Hux found himself scraping the dredges of a life made of lies, searching for something, _anything_ worthwhile, another’s voice was finding its way into his mind.

_You’re okay, Hux. Tell me what you need._

_Don’t worry, your secrets are safe with me._

_I don’t want to hurt you, even on accident, do you understand that?_

_Armitage, Armitage – Armitage Hux._

Hux held Poe Dameron’s words close, carefully, would continue to do so for as long as life allowed him to have them. Hux was no fool, he knew this would not last, could not – Hux was not the kind of person the world saw fit to bestow fortune upon. And this? Hux had not earned it, had in fact done enough in his time to ensure he never would. But his father was right about one thing – Hux was weak – and he was particularly weak to Poe.

So he would take what was given and give what he could, and he would prepare for the day it all ended, and he would not regret a single moment in between.

-

The mountains surrounded them in broken peaks, rigid and reaching towards an open sky that spilled into a vast blue ocean. Hux stood at the edge, watching the white water crash against the cliff, likening what he saw to the Arkanis he remembered as a child. Where Ajan Kloss was bright and bold with life and color, Arkanis was sleepy, gray with gloom. But there was a likeness, a distant connection in the violence of the landscape, in the wild entropic cycle of degeneration that ate away at the countryside - a constant barrage of nature that held its habitants at mercy. Arkanis was never meant to be settled, just as Ajan Kloss had long ago out-suffered the sentient species that had once called it home.

But, Hux found he could appreciate the beauty Poe saw in it, if only for the enthusiasm he was so keen to share.

“There, did you see it?” Poe was pointing at a shape barely formed beneath the crushing waves. Large and dark and shifting, Hux almost mistook it for a trick of shadow, but then there was a break in the waves, and he saw a creature beneath the surface. It was massive, easily the size of a small cargo carrier, gliding through the water with the grace of TIE. “Do you see it? It’s huge! Right there.”

Poe’s arm was alongside his shoulder, his chest pressed into his back and a protective hand at his waist. Hux leaned back, just a little, just to _feel_. “I see it, what is it?”

“I don’t know, but they’re always here, every time I come. They stay below the surface. Once I saw eight together. I think they might come here to feed, or it’s their breeding ground. There’s probably more even deeper, we can only see the ones that approach the surface.” Poe’s excitement was contagious in a way that made Hux feel like a boy again. It was becoming on Poe, but Hux felt awkward when he found himself leaning over the edge to get a better look, curious to see if there were more, if there was something below that would give him a clue as to the nature of such a massive beast. Poe’s hand tightened on his waist.

“Their food source is likely drawn to the warmer waters. The ocean would be deep here, and the deeper the water the colder it will be. Cold water does not sustain life as well as warm. We had creatures like this on Arkanis, we called them _Niseag._ ” Hux had seen them once, from the viewport of the transport when fleeing Arkanis. The pilot had flown low over the ocean in an attempt to stay out of range of Rebel starship radar, which had been monitoring Arkanis atmosphere for ships like his – ships escaping capture. Hux remembered the magical feeling of seeing the _Niseag_ , as if he were an adventurer setting off on some grand journey. He had learned quickly thereafter that the gilded edge of adventure hid something far more sinister.

“Arkanis? That’s where you grew up, right?” Poe had stepped around beside him, following Hux’s gaze over the cliff side. There was nothing but rock and crashing waves below.

“I lived there until I was five, yes.”

“Did you ever see a Niseag? Five is pretty young, not sure I remember much from when I was five.”

 _Too much_. At least, enough for the memories to be painful because they were the happiest he had.

“I did, once.” Hux paused, considering what to reveal to Poe - not that he didn’t want to share, but because he did not want to ruin _this._ Hux’s childhood was not a subject that lent itself to friendly conversation. “They were sea predators. Arkanis oceans were dangerous, but luckily most of the wildlife was contained to them. The land masses were relatively safe.”

“Yavin-four was the opposite. The jungles were the most dangerous parts. But it wasn’t predators we had to worry about, it was the plant life. I learned as a kid what was and wasn’t poisonous, but I had a friend who mistook a grenade spore for a Massassi fruit.” Poe paused, looked up at Hux. “He died. We were pretty young then, maybe seven? It messed me up pretty bad, back then.”

Well, perhaps Poe’s childhood wasn’t the entirely pleasant experience Hux assumed.

“We should probably get back to camp. I want to finish setting up before the sun starts to go down. It gets a lot colder up here at night and the high altitude can make it difficult to get a fire going.” Poe stepped away from the edge, but the arm at Hux’s waist remained, a tether as if Poe thought Hux might step forward instead of back. “We can come back later, if you want, maybe there will be more then.”

“No wonder you have stayed single, Dameron. If stranding us on a mountainside is your version of a date.”

“What- you’re not having fun yet?” Poe mocked affront, but the grin on his face assured Hux that he knew he was joking. “It was either this or a fancy dinner on the Falcon. Chewie offered to cook, you know – I think he feels he owes you one.”

“Surely the Wookie is an enviable chef. I think you made the wrong choice.” Hux was not fooling anyone. He did not want to be anywhere else but here.

Hux followed the path Poe picked down the mountain, watching where his footsteps landed and mimicking his movements. Their camp was several hundred meters downslope, and the trek up had left Hux winded and dizzy. _Altitude sickness_ Poe had explained when he sat Hux down and forced him to swallow a pair of pills and drink from his canteen. Hux suspected it was his lack of recent physical activity. He’d managed nothing more than long walks around the base, and those were more mindless meandering than an attempt to exercise. But if Poe’s intent was to tire Hux out he was well on his way.

When they arrived back at the campsite the sun was hardly at it zenith, but still hours out from sunset. Poe had chosen a spot at the base of a trickling waterfall where a small wading pool edged up to another break in the mountain side – just one in a series of tiers that the water had carved out of the smooth gray rock. They were not so high up that they’d gone beyond the tree line, and the camp was surrounded by a dense copse of large-leafed palms. It was their shed bark and branches that Poe was using to build a campfire at Hux’s feet.

Hux watched in satisfied contentment as Poe worked, enjoying the simple task he’d been assigned of re-hydrating packets of vegetables because it allowed him to pay more attention to Poe. There was a surprising deliberateness to the way Poe did things, as if he had an innate basic working knowledge of the world that allowed him to solve problems as naturally as if he had encountered them time and time again. Hux found the quality incredible attractive. That Poe was conventionally handsome almost seemed unimportant, but then he would do something like push a hand through his hair, bite his lip in concentration, or flash Hux that _smile_ and he would be right back where he started – lost in thoughts of Poe’s mouth and hands and their burning echoing touches.

When a fire kindled to life, smoke and flames licking up a cone of branches Poe had spent a curious amount of time constructing, Poe reached over and playfully pushed as Hux’s leg, “Hah- and to think you ever doubted me!”

“Doubted you?” Hux watched the fire snap and flare into a tiny smoldering inferno. Heat crept up his legs as it consumed the kindling with a tenacious voraciousness and Hux pushed his chair away from the flames enough that the warmth felt pleasant rather than stifling. The fire would need larger fuel soon, if they planned to keep it going into the evening. “Why would I doubt you?”

Poe laughed, shook his head, curls catching in the warm golden light of the fire, dark eyes capturing his. “I saw you watching me,” Poe stood from where he had been kneeling, brushing twigs and dust from his knees, raised an eyebrow. “Unless it was my dashing good looks that had you staring.”

 _Oh, he_ _’s flirting._ “And it if was? Your good looks, that is.” Hux set the packet of leafy greens aside next to his discarded gloves, craning his neck as Poe walked around behind him, his hand finding Hux’s hair and trailing through it. The touch was light, barely a brush, but Hux tilted his head into it and closed his eyes in hopeful invitation. Poe paused and pushed his fingers through his hair again, dragging gently along his scalp. Hux sighed, “That feels nice.” The words escaped him before he could think, whisking out with his breath - Hux fought the blush rising to his face.

“Does it?” A second hand matched the first, and Hux was lost. He leaned back so his shoulders rested against Poe. He was sitting in one of the collapsible chairs Poe had packed, and the height placed him right at Poe’s hips. If he turned his head, he knew what he would find. “We’ll have to explore this later.” Another gentle drag through his hair, Poe’s fingers tracing his part line. “How about you tell me more about how handsome you find me.”

Poe moved away, the tingling trails his fingers left on Hux’s scalp shivering down his spine, rooting in his extremities. “I don’t think you need your ego stroked, Dameron.” Hux was glad his voice sounded steady, because Poe’s glancing touch had left him all but trembling. “But yes, you have perfected that dashing hero look. You even had a few admirers amongst the First Order, before you blew up one of our Dreadnaughts.”

“Oh really?” Poe’s eyes lit up, catching Hux in a disarming intensity, “You among them?”

“Hardly,” Hux snorted, looking away, but he felt the blood finally rising to his cheeks. He had found Poe far more infuriating than attractive, back then – but his insistent flirting over their comms had certainly stirred unwanted ideas inside him.

Poe was grinning at him now, all teeth and something else that made Hux’s blush deepen. “You mean to say you didn’t go find some dark haired Order pilot and bring him to your bed, imagining he was me?”

Hux nearly swallowed his tongue, sputtering out a disgusted noise and throwing Poe a _look_ that said _Have you lost your mind?_

“What, you expect me to believe casual sex didn’t happen aboard the Finalizer?” Poe was _laughing_ now, face turned away as he searched through his speeder’s cargo compartment.

Hux wasn’t _naive_. “People entered into relationships, if that’s your question.” Poe shot back a look that said _no, it wasn_ _’t_. Hux sniffed, lips turning down in a frown. “Casual sex was not unheard of, but most kept their dalliances private.”

“And you, did you have any secret _dalliances_?”

“No.”

“Not interested in anyone?”

“No one was interested in _me_.” _Brendol made sure of that_. But as soon as the words left him Hux regretted the admission. Poe had paused in his task of unpacking their cooking supplies to _stare_ at him, eyebrows raised, his disbelief plain.

“Really,” Poe's eyes wandered over him, and Hux imagined he could feel the path they took across his skin. “I find that hard to believe.” His words were soft, carefully executed, and Hux smothered down both the shame and the desire that were bubbling to the surface of his thoughts. “Now who’s trying to get their ego stroked.”

Hux suddenly wished he could change the subject. “Even if the opportunity had arisen, I would not have pursued it. By the time I reached a status where I felt sex would not completely jeopardize the security of my position, there were few I would trust with any sort of…carnal knowledge, to put it plainly.”

Within the Order, sex was power. Maybe the Stormtroopers would get away with casual encounters amongst their ranks, but the command tract was afflux with rumors of sexual favors traded for privileges, for assignments and promotions - but also used to keep someone silent, to keep them under thumb. That Hux’s inclinations would have been utilized against him was left unspoken. But by the quality of Poe’s stare, Hux knew he was rending his words asunder, understanding the implications Hux had purposely left unsaid. He looked away, stared into the fire and swallowed down memories of a broken adolescence spent surviving a world of men.

“Armitage.” Hux started, Poe’s voice suddenly close, beside his ear. Poe had knelt down next to his chair, not touching, but close enough Hux could feel the ebbing weight of his presence. “I’m glad none of those fuckers got their hands on you.”

The _possessiveness_ of Poe’s words consumed him, alit within him that yearning he was beginning to associate only with Poe.

“I recognize inexperience at my age is unusual,” Hux said the words delicately, because what else went unspoken was that Poe was anything _but_ inexperienced, and Hux would have it no other way. “But it is not for a lack of interest, or desire. I want you, in any way you will have me, if that needs clarified.”

“I’ll never turn down hearing how much you want me,” That smile was back and Hux drowned himself in it. “And I’m glad you’re sharing this with me. It means a lot. This won’t work without trust.” Poe reached for him then, and Hux met him half way. Giving Poe his hand so he could take his bare fingers in his own.

“I trust you.” Hux breathed, eyes dropping to watch as Poe’s fingers traced over his, memorizing the sensations. They were soft, tender strokes that reminded him of the way Poe’s hands had moved over his speeder - every touch an intention, seeped in a familiar care. That increasingly persistent _want_ stirred to life inside him, and Hux hesitantly gave himself over to it. “Will you kiss me?” He risked a glance up at Poe, suddenly conscious of his own vulnerability, unsure if Poe would want to kiss right then, yet hoped he might.

But Poe reached for him with as much need as Hux himself felt, his hand warm where it cupped Hux’s cheek, steadying as Poe leaned forward to brush their lips together. Hux sighed into the gentle kiss, breath shaking with the exhale, filled with an emotion he couldn’t explain. He liked Poe’s soft careful kisses, liked how they unwound him in a way that felt cathartic, releasing a deeply rooted tension Hux had struggled with his entire adult life. He liked the way Poe’s hand traced his jaw, how his fingers curled under his chin, stroked down his neck. He especially liked how Poe smiled into him, as if Hux were something to smile about.

But he also liked when Poe made Hux feel wanted with that more impassioned desire, the same that consumed him in the janitor’s closet – a desire that drove him to the edges of his physical body as confidently as Poe drove him to the edge of that damned gorge. Some wild understanding of how Hux worked, as if Poe already knew all the secret things inside him that Hux had hidden from the rest of the world.

The kiss morphed from a gentle amorous thing to something more fervent, Poe picking up on Hux’s subtle cues – the small sounds he made when Poe’s hand curved around the length of his neck, the stuttered breath when Poe’s fingernails dragged over the thin skin of his wrist – and of course the full body trembling that left Hux weak when Poe pushed his tongue into his mouth in a slow deliberate way, as if this were a different act, something far more intimate.

Hux pressed into Poe’s mouth, struggling against a whimper as he let slip his fantasies – imagining Poe above him, inside him, _fucking_ him. He couldn’t stop the whimper then, as the fantasy overwhelmed him, and Poe responded by pulling away enough to ask, “Need more?”

“Yes.” Hux pressed closer as he breathed the word, wanting more – _needing_ more – but unsure where to go from here. Poe seemed to be letting Hux set their pace, remaining restrained in a way that settled in Hux a slow blooming desperation.

Placing his free hand on Poe’s cheek, Hux held Poe against him as he chanced touching his own tongue against his lips. In a tentative careful exploration that mimicked what Poe had shown him, Hux pressed into his mouth. Poe opened to him with a low moan, tongue meeting Hux in an encouraging way, drawing him deeper. But it wasn’t the same. Hux felt messy, graceless and inept as he moved against Poe, frustratingly unsatisfied in a way that made him feel panicked – because he needed to assuage these sensations inside him before they devoured him alive.

But when Hux began to withdraw Poe captured his tongue in a gentle bite of his teeth. Hux gasped, taken aback. This careful domination, as if Poe knew Hux better than he did himself, knew what he needed, struck through him and left Hux shaking. Moving his hand from Poe’s cheek to curl into his hair, Hux held on as Poe angled his head and drew Hux’s tongue deeper into his mouth. Then be began to _suck_ and Hux _moaned_ , mouth falling open as he gave himself up, gave himself over and let Poe have _his_ way.

It didn’t last. Just as Hux felt his body come to life, Poe broke from the kiss with a nip at his bottom lip, teeth a delicious drag, the tongue that followed tender and soothing. Hux ached for Poe, ached for _more_ , and by the way Poe’s chest heaved and his breath caught Hux thought he might too. But Poe was giving them space to gauge their desires, to give Hux the option of deciding how far this would go. So when Hux whispered, almost begged, “Don’t stop this time,” Poe understood, as Hux knew he would.

“Stars, Hux. Is that what you want?” Poe said against his lips before pulling away to press his mouth to Hux’s jaw, tongue and teeth trailing a hot path up to his ear where he murmured. “I do believe I have something to make up for.”

The words dropped a weight onto Hux, smothering the air out of his lungs and leaving his breath hitching. He struggled to maintain enough composure to respond with, “And I did say I’d hold you to that.”

Poe pulled away and _grinned_ at him, and Hux decided then that Poe’s smile could never grow old, that he would be happy to die right then if it meant Poe’s smile was the last thing he’d ever see.

Their fingers were still entangled as Poe moved to settle on the ground before him, between his legs, his body forcing Hux’s knees apart. The fire lit Poe from behind, casting light in a halo around his head so that flames licked out around the broad expanse of his shoulders. If Hux didn’t know better he might have thought Poe looked dangerous here, like something straight out of the fables he learned of as a child. But then Poe smiled _that_ smile up at him, and Hux grounded himself in the open adoration he saw – found himself squeezing Poe’s fingers as if he could hold onto his affection by sheer force of will.

And when Poe brought Hux’s captured hand up to his lips, Hux could only watch as Poe did something with his mouth that put to rest any doubts he might have had about what it was he wanted.

Pushing a thumb between his first and middle finger, Poe held his eyes as he separated the two and slid his tongue into the gap he’d made, dragging up, slow and hot and _wet,_ along the length of Hux’s fingers, pausing briefly to swirl around them before _swallowing_ the two fingers _whole_.

“ _Oh_.” Hux breathed out, as the idea formed, solidified into a reality he could reach out and take, if he wanted. And how Hux _wanted_.

Poe pulled off with a wet sound, teeth replacing his tongue to drag at his fingertips, eyes smoldering up into Hux with a question that didn’t need asking, because Hux already had an answer. Hux slowly, cautiously, pushed his fingers back into Poe’s mouth.

Poe moaned and Hux unraveled, both taken undone, brought to pieces at the altar of the other.

Poe proceeded to devour Hux’s fingers with a slow deliberate dedication. That Poe didn’t break eye contact as he sucked at Hux’s fingers maybe should have made him feel self-conscious – but instead Hux found himself irrevocably enraptured. As much as Hux wanted to watch the way Poe’s lips pursed as he moved up his fingers – the way his tongue curled around the length of his forefinger before sliding into the gap he’d made with his thumb – the way Poe’s mouth _sucked_ at him with a gentle constant pressure – it was Poe’s eyes that captured Hux. They held onto him with a tenacious demand, dark in a way that had nothing to do with their color, saying things to Hux with words he heard in the seat of his consciousness – words that had no form but held all the meaning of the universe.

Hux was shaking all over by the time Poe pulled off his fingers. He panted into the cooling mountain air around him, skin feverish with the desire coursing through him. Poe looked almost as shaken, his mouth pressed now into Hux’s wrist, tongue and teeth worrying at the skin there, burning fissures of fire through his nervous system, straight down into the heated pit of him. But it was still his eyes that set into Hux a profound desire. Poe’s heavy hooded eyes smoldered up at him with an intent, a _plan_ , and Hux knew before the words left him what was coming.

“Gonna suck your dick,” Poe rasped out, then quickly amended, “If you’ll let me. Please let me?” Stars, he sounded _broken_. And Hux _laughed_ , because if Poe didn’t suck his dick right then Hux wasn’t sure he’d be alive for the next opportunity.

“Yeah?” Poe was reaching for him now - not his waistband, as Hux thought he might - but Hux’s face. He pulled him down into a hard commanding kiss, pressing words into his mouth when he said “Are you gonna let me suck your dick?” And then proceeded to push his tongue into Hux’s mouth and _take take take_.

Hux could do nothing other than whimper his assent. But that wasn’t enough for Poe, “Gotta say it,” he demanded even as he stole the words from Hux’s tongue and the breath from his lungs.

“ _Yes_ ,” Hux finally gasped out, into, against Poe’s mouth – he didn’t even _know_ now. “ _Please_ , yes - _Poe_.”

They moved in tandem, desperate to reach a moment both had been dancing around for far too long.

Poe’s hands were hot as they moved over Hux, palms scorching trails of fire where they pushed up Hux’s thighs, pressing his legs further apart, thumbs curling into the tender junction where muscle met the flesh of his groin. Hux met him there, arched into the pressure, hips raising, suddenly feeling too hot, too confined, as if his clothes were suddenly too small, the air too heavy and Poe too far away-

“Easy, I’ve got you. Hands on my shoulders.” Poe eased him down, shifting his hands up to Hux’s hips and pulling them firmly forward, settling him on the seat of his chair. And though Hux reached for Poe, his hands grabbing purchase of his shirt, his skin and his muscle, it was Poe who grounded him, who held him steady. Hux was at the edge of something that was fast becoming familiar, and it was Poe who both brought him there and held him back from falling.

But Poe did not let him go, not yet. He pushed Hux’s hips down, tipped his head forward to touch their foreheads together as he looked down between them, eyes focused on Hux’s lap. Hux followed his gaze, saw himself through the stretch of his pants, a dark spot forming where the tip of his erection pressed into the gray fabric - wet where he _leaked_ \- and then one of Poe’s hands slid from his hip and inched its way towards that spot, and Poe said, brokenly “Gonna touch you now.” And Hux almost cried with his consent.

When Poe touched him, Hux could only hold on as Poe pushed him right to that edge.

“Fuck, Armitage, look at you.” Poe’s hand was large and hot, cupping him through the fabric of his pants, thumb smoothing over that dark wet spot. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous. Do you even know how fucking _perfect_ you are?” The words spilled from Poe unhindered, a string of compliments Hux didn’t think he was worthy of but triggered reactions inside his body, little fiery trails of pleasure that coursed through his pelvis and culminated at a point deep in his groin. And when Poe’s hand smoothed up over the fabric, dipping into his waistband to wrap around the bare flesh of him, Hux could not give himself over any faster. He pushed into the touch, a long drawn out sound escaping his throat – obscene to Hux’s ears, but he couldn’t stop it, didn’t want any of this to stop.

That he wanted Poe to just take what he wanted left Hux shaken - a little scared - because it was true, he _trusted_ Poe. And while everything else in his world had stopped making sense, this thing between them felt like the security he’d been searching for his entire life, and Hux didn’t want to let it go.

“Gonna make you feel good.” Poe was kissing him again, mouth moving over him, Hux swallowing his words with his gasps. Poe held Hux loosely in one hand, the other tugging at his waistband to slide his pants from his hips, just enough to free him completely, before settling on his hip. Poe again held Hux still, giving him a moment he didn’t know he needed, mouth murmuring encouraging words Hux couldn’t keep track of. He felt strung out, lost inside himself, his whole world honed into a hyper sensitive focus and all he could do was cling to Poe as he was held at his edge.

By the time Poe’s grip tightened on him Hux was shaking, his breath fluttering in his chest in time with his pulse. Poe’s finger’s curled around the length of him and his thumb rubbed over his slit, gathering the precome and using it to slick circles into his skin. It nearly shattered Hux. He wasn’t going to last, he was already too close, pushed past his limit by Poe’s words as much as his touch.

“Poe, I need- _please_.” Hux felt moisture gathering at the corners of his eyes, his voice breaking over the words he struggled to get out. His hands hurt where they gripped Poe, holding so tight that he could feel his fingernails bite through the fabric of his shirt. “Poe, please, _Poe-_ _“_

“I know, gonna make you _come_.” The control in Poe’s voice trembled, nearly outdone by the desperate desire Hux felt mirrored in himself, but still Poe’s mindful consideration overrode all else. Hux drowned himself in the earnest concern, the _care_ that Poe was determined to give him.

“You trust me?” Poe asked, voice low with emotion, and Hux nodded because he couldn’t find his voice anymore, but Poe understood, didn’t force him. “Then don’t let go.” Poe whispered the words against Hux’s lips and then he was leaning down, over his lap, swallowing Hux’s cock down in a single smooth motion, his hot tongue traveling the length of him, his lips a tight seal around him, his mouth a gentle sucking pressure.

Hux shouted. He heard it over the rushing sound in his ears, the cascading flow of blood from his head to his groin, the pressure and sensations coalescing into a fire that consumed every inch of him, but burned brightest where Poe swallowed him whole.

Hux wondered if he had come, because his body burned with the feeling of it, constant and consuming, one long drawn out nerve of over-stimulation. But then he felt Poe’s fingers around his scrotum, a firm tugging pressure, and he realized Poe had _stopped him_ right at the edge of his orgasm, was holding him there yet still, and Hux could do nothing but _trust_ as Poe manipulated him with the deliberate knowing motions of a man who knew what he wanted, knew what Hux _needed_ , and had brought his body exactly there - dangling over that edge with nothing but Poe to hold onto.

Hux untwisted his hands from Poe’s shirt, moved them to instead twist into his hair, leaning down over Poe’s hunched form as he dropped his head and opened his mouth in a broken wavering _scream._

Poe released him and he tumbled over the edge.

-

“Still no mister or misses right to tell me ‘bout, son?” Kes always asked when Poe holo’d. It was a joke, almost, at this point, because after thirty-three years Poe had not brought a single person home to meet his dad.

But it also kept them from talking about the war. It kept Kes from having to hear about all the reckless ways in which Poe risked his life for the Resistance, all the lives he took for the sake of the New Republic’s safety. And it softened the edge of so many lost months when Poe couldn’t holo. They both knew any one of their conversations could be their last, and neither wanted to spend it talking about war.

So Kes talked about Poe’s love life, and Poe suffered through the same conversation every call.

Poe knew Kes worried, though he never said so in words. Poe also knew Kes wanted Poe to be happy about as much as he wanted him to be safe. Not that anyone could truly be _happy_ during a war, though Poe did a damned good job of playing the part. But Kes knew. No matter how many times the New Republic media machine plastered Poe’s smiling face across a holovid or recruitment poster, Kes saw right through it. His father knew him in a way no one else did, and he knew Poe wouldn’t truly be happy until he had someone in his life to love.

“You’ve got a lot of love in you, kiddo. But you can’t share it all with the world or it’ll wear ya thin. You have to find someone who deserves it, who needs it. Someone who will give it back.”

Poe hadn’t understood what that meant as a boy, less so as a young man. Love came easy, he found it everywhere, in everything and in everyone. What could be wrong with that? Why shouldn’t he share his love with everyone? The world embraced his love, it made him friends and gained him opportunities, it sent him on adventures and brought him back alive – and he had no trouble finding lovers, when he felt inclined.

But as he grew older he found that those things which had been so simple and easy to love, they always faded. He had many friends across the galaxy, but none he would holo when he felt brought low. His charm had bought him opportunities that had propelled a successful military career, but then he’d abandoned it all for the Resistance, because he was still chasing an adventure that would feel fulfilling. And those lovers? Each of them burned out with a passion that could not sustain itself, a fleeting connection that always left Poe a little more empty, a little more defeated, until he’d finally stopped looking at all.

Until Armitage Hux.

 _Stars_ if his dad wasn’t going to choke on his own words. What would Kes say when Poe brought home _General Hux of the First Order_? _Hey dad! Remember what you said about finding the right person?_

Because if there was anyone in the universe who deserved love, who _needed_ it, it was Armitage Hux.

And Poe was positive Armitage Hux loved him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter count has gone up because who actually writes a 4k blowjob? Apparently I do. Share your feels because I spent all mine writing this chapter.
> 
> On loop this time: "Atomic Number" by Neko Case, K.D Lang, and Laura Veirs


	6. Transmission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Some more smut (hot spring trope guys, come on), also too much Poe POV, he just really took over this chapter. Is that a warning? Well it is now.

In the far distance, Poe watched the contrail of a star cruiser cut a line through the dome of Ajan Kloss’s atmosphere. There, high above the early break of dawn, the ship glittered in the sky like a jewel - a heavenly thing drawn down from the stars, chasing the dark of night as light teased into day. The morning was young enough that the air hung heavy and chilled over their sleeping pad, the sun a cool blue bath that peaked over the horizon, barely breaching the mist that crawled through the campsite.

And here was where Poe held a still sleeping Armitage in the curve of his arm.

Poe had slept some – enough – but he’d woken so many times in the night with a fluttering _excitement_ that eventually he had lain awake, arms around Armitage, nursing the emotions that welled beneath the surface of his thoughts.

Poe was in _love_ , and it was all he could do to contain it, to not go shouting it out to the universe in a klaxon call to celebration. Instead, he would save it all for Armitage, just like Kes advised, and Poe found he was okay with that too – wanted it more, had never wanted anything so much in his entire life.

Poe was in love, and it was all he could do not to wake the man in his arms and tell him over and over again, to not press the words into his mouth, his cheeks, his hair, his wrists and his hands. Because while Poe was sure Armitage felt the same, he wasn’t so sure he understood those feelings - love was a foreign thing to Armitage, something read about in stories, heard about in holos. Armitage Hux was not a man who had loved, or a man who had been loved - of that much Poe was certain.

Armitage twitched in his sleep, a breathy sigh pushing past his lips as he shifted against Poe. They’d fallen asleep entwined together. Poe had insisted, last night. Had pressed into Armitage from behind, arms gathering him close, face buried between his shoulder blades, holding Armitage to the warm cradle of his chest and hips. A moment of hesitation, Armitage’s natural inclination towards distrust, had been short suffered - in fact, it had been entirely surrendered come dawn.

Because at some point in the night Poe had ended up on his back, Armitage having rolled over against his chest where his head and hand used him as a pillow, the rest of him pressed along the length of Poe’s side. It was close and intimate and entirely the doing of Armitage’s subconscious, and Poe had marveled at that, taken aback for only a moment, before he'd buried his face in Armitage's hair and _breathed_. He smelled of ozone and rain, sharp and organic like the taste of atmosphere after a storm, like something once dangerous brought to heel, now tamed and tempered. Poe memorized this, his scent, his warmth, the cadence of his breath, the thrum of his pulse, slow and even beneath the press of Poe’s palms. The intimacy of _this,_ Poe knew it for the gift it was - a trust Armitage had never bestowed upon another, a giving up of the most guarded parts of himself.

And he had given that trust to _Poe_. He had given that trust to Poe in so _many_ ways.

Poe smiled at the memory of last night, when Armitage had been worried he wouldn’t be able to sleep – _cuddling_ , he’d said with a sneer – but then he’d drifted off before Poe had so much as whispered goodnight.

And then he smiled at the memory of Armitage coming apart for him, coming _for_ him, all breathy gasps and a wavering _scream_. It had taken all he had to not push Armitage further. To not pull him to the ground and open him up and take him right there in front of their campfire. Armitage would have let him, had looked at him after and asked, in that proper genteel accent, what he could do for Poe. And Poe had pressed soft careful kisses into Armitage’s mouth until his erection had receded enough and he could answer honestly, that he could wait until later – until next time.

There were going to be _so many_ more next times.

Morning crept on, as slow and easy as Poe himself felt, and it was some time before Armitage began to stir. His eyelashes fluttered against Poe’s chest and when Poe slid a hand down his spine, he delighted in the half-aware moan it got. Armitage shifted into the touch, shoulders hunching as his hips rolled into Poe’s thigh. And then, altogether, Armitage stiffened, and Poe knew he had come fully awake.

“Morning beautiful,” Poe murmured the words into Armitage’s hair, nuzzling the nest of tangled red while he tightened the curl of his arm. He wasn’t going to let Armitage get away that easily.

Poe felt the clench of Armitage’s jaw as he swallowed, voice raspy with sleep as he asked, “I slept like this all night?”

“Appears so,” Poe brought his free hand up to where Armitage’s was still resting on his chest, placed it over top, thumb slipping under his fingers to hold him there. “Don’t move yet, this is way too nice.”

Poe counted his victories when Armitage relaxed against him. When his fingers curled over Poe’s thumb to return his hold, Poe outright grinned. And though Armitage remained quiet, Poe thought he knew why, and he wanted to give Armitage the space to examine his emotions without imprinting his own.

When he finally pushed up out of Poe’s hold – hand still on his chest, which Poe thrilled at – He leveled a _look_ at Poe that nearly made him blush. Eyes half-lidded with sleep, folded creases pressed into his cheek, Armitage dragged his gaze over Poe’s body. From his eyes to his hips and back up again, where he settled into an eye contact that left Poe’s heart pounding. Still, Armitage remained quiet, though Poe could see the machinations of thought in his pale stare. He felt exposed in a way he wasn’t sure he disliked – like Armitage could see straight into the depths of him and saw something worthwhile. Eventually Armitage made a sound, like a grunt, frown falling into place as he climbed to his feet.

“Well?” Poe propped himself up on his elbows, asking after Armitage as he picked his way across their campsite.

“Well what, Dameron?” Armitage didn’t look back as he squatted by the dead fire, searching around until he found their canteen.

“Hugs, you just took me apart with your eyes and then _grunted_ at me. Ya gotta give a man some reassurance.”

“You’re fine.” Armitage took a swig from the canteen, then turned his head to the side and spat the water out. “There are worse people to wake up next to.”

“There’s someone who would be _better?_ ” Poe mocked affront, because he saw the smile pulling at Armitage’s mouth. “I’m a stars given _catch_ , I’ll have you know.”

“You’re certainly good at getting caught, if that’s what you mean.”

Poe pushed himself into a sitting position, eyes wide and tone indignant. “That only happened twice. You only caught me _twice_.”

“Thrice, if you count this.” And Armitage gestured between them before taking another sip from the canteen, this time swallowing. But Poe saw the affectionate mirth in his eyes, eyes which had met and now held Poe’s, and Poe couldn’t stop the grin that split his face.

“OK. Three times, I’ll concede. You taking me back to the Order now or do I have time to brush my teeth.”

“Brush your teeth. I’m not kissing you again until you do.”

 _Oh._ He could do this. Poe could so _do this._

Morning ambled on indifferent to the tide of time. Poe nursed a pot of caf that had long since grown cold as the sun crawled above the sparse tree line. They’d been lazy preparing breakfast, taking their time around the rekindled campfire, glancing touches against one another with no other excuse than they could. No one was around to see, no one was there to judge, and Poe took every advantage of these moments. He drew fingers over Armitage’s wrist when they reached for the same empty mug. He rubbed a hand across his shoulders when Armitage lifted his arms in a long graceful stretch. And though it was subtle, Poe caught Armitage doing the same - a touch to his knee, when Armitage sat down beside him – a breath against his neck, as Armitage leaned over to flick a bug from Poe’s shirt.

Armitage was far more refined in his seductions, and his brief touches sent Poe’s mind reeling, sent his heart fluttering – set his mouth _smiling_.

There was a comfortable ease to Armitage that Poe had never seen before. A vulnerability only in how he let down his guard enough for Poe to see him in such simple mundane ways. He liked the way Armitage brushed his teeth, precise little motions of equal attention over every tooth, ticking the seconds off in an analytical deconstruction of what was, for Poe, nothing but a mindless habit. And he like how Armitage steeped his tea, brows furrowed as the color changed, lips pursed in little testing sips until he deemed it perfect enough to deign drinking. Then there were the tiny neck stretches, little motions Poe caught Armitage performing between everything else, that Poe almost offered to help with, just for the excuse to get his hands on him.

But there was no rush. They had time. All the time in the universe.

When Armitage pulled out his codepad and began swiping through something on the screen Poe couldn’t read, he wasn’t sure if he should worry he was boring Armitage, but then he caught Poe staring and lifted the pad for him to see.

“I’ve been updating Force, now that I can. Maybe I can test the changes out on you later. I need to see if the mechanics function as intended with the…average player.”

Poe placed a hand over his chest, expression pained. “ _Average?_ Hugs, you’re gonna give me a complex.”

Armitage just smirked at him. “I sincerely doubt that, Dameron.”

“You know I won a game against Phasma.” Poe hadn’t said much about his mission to the Academy, but he had to claim bragging rights where he could.

“Did you now?” Armitage drawled as if underwhelmed, but Poe saw how his eyes lingered on him, how they _moved_ over him. “Then I fully expect to be impressed later.”

Oh, _shit_. “I’m gonna wreck you, just you wait.” Poe knew his grin was feral, he could feel the way his face split.

Armitage finally had to look away when the blush across his nose went from pink to nearly red.

Tomorrow they would have to return to the base, and with it return to a life and responsibility that felt so easily escaped here – far removed from the Resistance and the First Order and all the constructs of a life tethered to their respective causes. That those causes had ever aligned in a tenuous truce, let alone an actual merging of sides – Poe was almost fraught with the guilt that any of this might have happened sooner. If all peace took was an empathetic understanding of your foe, of small moments of shared camaraderie…no, Poe knew it wasn’t that simple. Nothing was ever that simple. But Armitage made it _feel_ simple. When Poe looked at him, he still saw the First Order General – he saw _Starkiller_ – but he also saw the man beneath it all, a man who did what he had to for a cause he believed in, a cause that had turned out not all that fundamentally different from the cause Poe found himself fighting for.

Peace, prosperity, a united galaxy.

That Armitage sought that path through order and technology and an indelible military strength, and Poe sought it through the melding of cultures and peoples and customs…there had to be a middle ground. He _knew_ there was. And maybe the two of them could be the key to finding that path together.

Or maybe he would steal Armitage away to that simple sweet life Poe had spent his life running from, maybe _that_ was what the future held for them.

For now, Poe would steal a simple sweet kiss from Armitage – they could figure out the rest later, they had all the time in the world to figure out the rest.

Poe leaned over, fingers under Armitage’s chin as he turned his face up and brushed his lips over the bow of his mouth. It was soft, chaste, entirely familiar and at ease, but Poe watched as Armitage’s eyes fluttered closed, as his body drew all that much closer to Poe’s.

“Got something I wanna show you,” Poe murmured as he found Armitage’s hand and threaded their fingers together. The gloves were absent, his hands soft and exposed. Poe took all the advantage that offered him, “Up for another hike?”

Armitage’s attention was on Poe’s hands where they moved over his, thumbs finding the soft places between his fingers, nails drawing lines along his palms. “You and your adventures,” Armitage murmured back. And then that danger was back, a storm churning in his eyes as his hands moved in Poe’s, twisting up to grab hold, guiding them to his waist, pressing them along to his hips. Poe’s breath caught, his cock stirring. “We could stay here, we could…we could have sex.”

 _Stars._ Poe was defenseless against Armitage, his words a critical hit, sweeping him off his feet, and Poe was _falling_. “Yeah,” He breathed, “That’s definitely an option.”

Then they were kissing again, open and hot. Poe’s fingers curled into the cradle of Armitage’s hips while his tongue carved a place for itself inside his mouth. Armitage let him, opened for him, drew him all the closer.

Then, he was pushing Poe away.

“Hmm,” Armitage pulled Poe’s hands free, leaving him grasping at empty air as he slipped out of reach. “Actually, a hike sounds nice, now that I’ve thought about it.”

“Shit, Hugs.” Poe’s laugh was strained as he looked up at where Armitage now stood over him, expression entirely impassively _poised_. “Since when did you become a tease?”

“Oh, _I’m_ the tease?” Poe closed his eyes as Armitage’s hand lifted to push into Poe’s hair in the same way Poe knew to be his nervous habit. But with Armitage it was bold and beautifully forward. “If memory serves, it’s been you who has been teasing me for weeks.” Armitage was not gentle, he dragged his hand through Poe’s curls with a delicious friction.

“Stars, I deserve this,” Poe laughed, then moaned, when Armitage _pulled_ at his hair. Armitage’s hips were but a short reach away, if he leaned forward he could press his face into his crotch, nuzzle his way along the erection he knew he’d find there. “Whatever you want, just tell me.”

“Are you asking me to order you around, Dameron?” And holy _shit_ , if he hadn’t already been hard that would have done it.

“Fuck, yes.” Poe opened his eyes, caught and held Armitage’s in a burning echo of his thoughts. From his vantage Armitage looked all the more imposing, all the sharp angles and long lines of his body betraying years of high command - even here, dressed in training sweats on an abandoned mountainside. Poe was into it, he was _really_ into it. “At your service, General, _sir_.” His voice dripped, sweet like honey.

Armitage looked away, mouth parted and cheeks pink, that unflappable control unraveling just a little before Poe’s eyes. His hand slipped from Poe’s hair. “A hike,” he barked out, the words staunched by a tightness in his throat that betrayed what it was Armitage actually wanted, “We’re going on a hike.”

Poe scrambled together a meager mess of supplies – the bare minimum – because his mind could not focus on anything other than Armitage Hux.

The sun was cresting high in the sky as Poe led Armitage down the mountainside. Pale clouds collected in endless cumulus coifs of fluff, bathing them in a dense shade that provided almost cold relief from the glaring sunlight. Here, at the top of these mountains, under an overcast sky, Ajan Kloss’s humid jungle temperament was eased by the bite of altitude. The sun shone warm, but the air turned cold with each passing breeze, nipping at Poe’s bared chest and collecting under the fabric of his shirt in a tenacious taking of his body heat. The sensation made him feel alive, beholden to the laws of nature that technology abstracted - things like gravity and a biology dependent upon air and atmosphere. Nature grounded Poe in the same way the stars inspired his dreams, reminding him of what was real and tangible, the slow things in life that were otherwise lost to the thrill of adventure.

And in that liminal space between the earth and the sky, the mountains captured Poe’s spirit. Whether they were the folded peaks of Ajan Kloss or Yavin-4’s soaring slumbering volcanoes, Poe found himself drawn to their heights - found a kinship in their reach for a distanced sky. Maybe, Poe thought, it was the same desire that drew him to flying - that whatever these mountains sought in an aborted yearning, Poe could reach from the cockpit of an x-wing. Heights had never scared him, not as a child and even less so as an adult, but it wasn’t the thrill of danger that necessarily spurred him to pilot, but the freedom, the ability to reach places that seemed so unreachable - of chasing the impossible - of defying those very same laws of nature that held even a mountain at bay.

Maybe it was the same stuff inside him that made him chase after Armitage Hux. Because if ever there were a person whose summit was rumored to be too high to reach, it would be his. Somehow, against the odds, Poe had achieved the impossible.

Poe followed along a path that had long ago been carved from the rock by a glacier of ice. There were reminders scattered along the mountainside, a cirque of bowled rock here, a series of aretes spearing past the tree tops there, but it was the pool of milky water that lay tucked into the former glacier wall that Poe brought Armitage to. Here, the spindly mountain grass grew sparse, low ropey bushes clinging to the dry earthen soil, nesting their roots in the warmed mineral bath and drawing water and life out of a desiccated landscape of rock and wind. A testament to the vitality of nature, here on an exposed mountainside overlooking an endless ocean, the bushes sprouted tiny violet wild flowers, a staunch reminder that where life made way, beauty was always soon to follow.

“Ever bathed in a natural hot spring?” Poe turned to Armitage, who watched him from the edge of the cliff side overlooking the ocean beyond. The wind tugged at his hair, the gusts coming off the ocean thwarting the mountain in a cold sheer. Armitage’s sneer was back in place, his eyes drifting to the pool of water even as his hands reached up to fold over one another. He looked cold, Poe _felt_ cold - the pieces of his plan were falling neatly into place.

“I fear our definitions of natural may need debated.” Armitage stepped closer, eyeing the steaming cloudy water with an obvious distaste. “Surely that is not safe. Nothing should produce a vapor like that.”

“That’s a no.” Poe laughed while he dropped his bag at the side of the pool, beneath the violet flowered bushes and atop the moss that grew in the shade they provided. Then he turned back to Armitage, making sure he was watching as Poe’s fingers played over the buttons of his shirt, working through them all the way down to his naval. “It’s perfectly safe, I’ve come here plenty of times. Brought BB-8 once to monitor for geothermal anomalies, to be extra safe. Nothing to worry about.”

“Are you telling me you risk boiling yourself alive for a warm bath on a regular basis?” But as the words left him Poe saw how Armitage’s eyes slid over to Poe’s exposed chest. Poe un-tucked his shirt but left it hanging open, hands moving to his belt and thumbing the leather strap loose. Armitage swallowed and turned away, suddenly modest in the face of Poe’s not so scandalous strip tease.

“I’ve risked my life over far less pleasant things.” Poe slipped the belt free, dropping it to the ground in a soft clatter. “This is worth it, trust me.”

“Dameron, I-” But Poe had kicked off his boots and dropped his pants, stepping his feet free to peel his socks away. Poe didn’t wear underwear, as a rule - or maybe it was a law at this point - if it meant he’d get more of these shocked expressions out of Armitage - who had cut himself off with a soft strangled sound.

“You were bound to see me naked at some point. And now we’re even, you can watch _me_ bath.” Poe winked as he toed the steaming water. It was just warm enough, as warm as a freshly run bath. “Oh yeah, that’s _nice_.” Poe stepped into the pool, wading out waist deep, feet finding a firm footing on the rocky surface below.

The quality of the water was alkaline, the milky texture born from the silica drawn up from the bedrock, combining in a slick buttery sensation across his skin. On Yavin-4 most of the hot springs were acidic, and not suited to actual soaking. On Ajan Kloss the volcanoes were far older, far deeper beneath the surface, and the geothermal energy that traveled through the broken fault line of the cliff side spilled free in warmed tide pools, subterranean cave lakes, and here, in tiny hot springs that swelled into the ice carved cracks and crevices of the mountainside. Fed by warmed water that flowed up from this meandering underground aquatic system, the springs supported a microbial level of life that left not just his skin soft, but his body relaxed, his mind at ease. Poe sighed as he sank down to submerge his shoulders, eyes hooded as he watched Armitage eye him with curious distaste.

“You’re mad,” Armitage announced even as his hands plucked at the hem of his shirt, fingers rolling the fabric in nervous indecision, then turning white as they gripped tight. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

Poe watched in open spectation as Armitage stripped himself of his clothing. His shirt went first, followed by his boots, and then his socks - his pants saved for last but even those were shed with a clinical efficiency. Armitage folded and sorted his clothing neatly atop a barren rock, carefully laying his boots over top the pile lest the wind sweep them away and leave him entirely naked for the trek back to camp. Then he went and did the same to _Poe_ _’s_ clothing, so that by the time Armitage was standing at the edge of the pool he was covered in gooseflesh, the gusting breeze propelling him into the water far better than any of Poe’s encouragements.

Armitage was skinny, though not as skinny as Poe remembered from the last time he’d seen him entirely naked. And Poe wondered after the extent of Armitage’s neglect - whether during his short imprisonment with the Resistance, or more likely, before, aboard the Steadfast. He knew stress could wreck havoc on a person’s metabolism, not to mention their appetite, and that Armitage suffered from severe anxiety was an open secret. But he looked _good_ now- whole and healthy, as if the last couple weeks had been kind to him in a very physical way. Poe carved this image of him into his memory, this windswept First Order General who was betraying all he knew to climb into a hot spring with his former enemy in some forbidden romantic tryst - it was something straight out of a romance holo. Poe couldn’t help it when he laughed aloud.

“What? Why are you laughing?” Armitage snapped as he waded into the water, palms skimming the surface as if it were a platform he could catch himself on if he slipped. “Dameron, if you’re planning something I am not above violence.”

“No, no- I’m sorry,” Poe tread in the water, knees folded up to his waist while he pushed off the rocks at the bottom with his toes. The water didn’t go any deeper than his waist here, at the center of the pool, and he could sit at the edge and his shoulders would barely be covered. “I’m not teasing, I was just thinking about how ridiculous this is. Like those daytime romance holos my mom hated but always watched. She called them trash, I never understood why, I loved them as a kid.”

“You watched romance holos as a child?” Armitage suppressed a snort, but the laugh was still there, in his eyes, in the turn of his mouth. Poe beamed up at Armitage, creeping towards where he stood unmoving, just out of arms reach of Poe, smoothing his fingertips together in fascination. “What makes the water so slick?”

“It’s alkaline, the pH isn’t too high but it’s enough to make the water feel slippery.” Poe waded closer, waiting to see if Armitage would rebuff him. “And yeah, I was home-schooled as a kid. Where I grew up on Yavin-4, it wasn’t populated enough for a dedicated schoolhouse, so I spent a lot of time at home with my mom before she died. I don’t know why she watched them if she hated them, I think she secretly got a kick out of them and was too embarrassed to admit it. For whatever reason they charmed me.”

“Why do I feel this explains a lot about you?" Armitage sneered, but there was a softness to it, nothing more than a gentle tease. “There was no holo entertainment in the Unknown Regions, but I remember Maratelle had a bookshelf full of romance novellas. The covers were atrociously obscene. She caught me looking at them once and nearly ran me out of the house.”

“Maratelle? Was she your mother?” Poe had closed the distance almost enough, just a little closer and he would be within reach.

“No.” Armitage’s voice lowered, his eyes slipping over the surface of the water as they slipped over the surface of his thoughts. “She was my father’s wife. My mother worked her kitchen.”

It took Poe a moment to put the words together, but then memory rushed back in a flood. _Leia has an important message_ _…about your mother_. Poe drew up stiff, felt how his face split open. “ _Shit_ , Armitage, I-”

“I’ve long ago come to terms with your tasteless sense of humor, Dameron.” Armitage snapped, beguiling an emotion he tried to deny. But the sigh that left him took with it that very same emotion. “Maratelle was barren. She resented my mother and resented me even more. My father left them both behind on Arkanis when he fled with me. You would not have known, it was a lucky shot.”

“I get a lot of lucky shots,” Poe confirmed with a grimace - then, quieter “Your father sounds like a monster, if he would leave his family behind.”

“Family is a generous way to describe it. And my kill count far outnumbers his, now.” Their conversation was quickly devolving into a territory that left Poe treading water in a way that had nothing to do with the hot spring. “He was not a man to be impressed, which didn’t stop me from trying as a child. Starkiller Base might have done it though.”

A beat, and then Armitage clarified, “I do not mean that in jest.”

“I know you wouldn’t joke about that,” Poe murmured. He suddenly wished he could dial this moment back to _before,_ to that moment when Armitage was suppressing a laugh over Poe’s childhood romance holo obsession.

Instead, Armitage had grown still, the water lapping gentle ripples around his waist. His voice was quiet, “Do you know what happened to him?”

Poe did. Or, he’d heard the rumors. Now that he knew both Armitage and Phasma he believed them to be true, “You and Phasma killed him.”

“Poison, from a beetle native to her home planet. It was not a quick death.” Armitage was speaking from a distant place, his mind consumed by a memory Poe was not privy to. And, Poe thought, maybe Armitage _needed_ to talk about this - maybe he’d never had someone to talk about any of this with before now. “You don’t hate me for that? I killed my own father, Poe.”

“Well,” Poe sidled closer, all his plans to tackle Armitage underwater abandoned along with the mirthful humor of earlier. “The Resistance knew a lot more about him than we did you, and I read his file for the Academy mission. I know what he did to those kids.” _I know what he must have done to you,_ went unsaid. Armitage watched him closely, arms once again folded together, lips pressed into a line, weary with an unexpressed emotion. “Come down here, you look cold.” Poe smiled his best smile, gave it all he had.

Armitage dropped his eyes and slowly sunk down beside him. The water crawled up his pale skin, filling in his cracks and crevices, smoothing over scars and warming away the gooseflesh Poe wasn’t so sure was from the cold, anymore. Poe wanted to be that water, wanted to slide over Armitage’s skin and find all the dark hidden things he kept stolen away and then fill them up with warmth and softness.

The sigh that Armitage expelled when his shoulders dipped beneath the surface left Poe grinning. “I’ll admit, this feels rather wonderful.” Armitage leaned back in the water, submerged up to his chin, the details of his body hidden by the cloud of silica. But Poe could see the pale wake of his hands as they lifted to his shoulders, could see when his fingertips peaked out from the water to press into the length of his neck. And Poe’s breath caught as he watched Armitage’s eyes flutter shut with another long drawn out sigh. He looked beautiful like this, graceful and lithe, body suspended in rare relaxation, cheeks flushed, face dewy with warmed vapor. Poe licked his lips, completely _taken._

“Can I do that?” Poe breathed before he even finished the thought, wanting to know the texture of Armitage’s skin, the feel of his flesh, like this, sluiced in this gentle yielding temporality. Here, Armitage was a man, nothing more, the facade of monster drawn back as surely as if it were a spectral guise, a haunting exorcised by warmed water and a reluctant baring of his soul.

Armitage nodded his head even as the words left his mouth, “My past is not pleasant, I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

“Armitage, you can talk to me about anything.” Poe inched closer, let a knee bump his beneath the surface of the water. “Whatever you need to talk about, I’m here to listen.”

“Hmm.” Now his fingers were pressing into the meaty place where neck turned into shoulder, rubbing at the muscle there, “I think I’m finished talking for now.”

Poe laughed, finally reaching out to run a hand over Armitage’s shoulder. The silica in the water left milky trails along skin that felt as smooth as it looked. “Fair enough. Your neck bothering you?”

The answer came in the form of a grimace. “A chronic condition, stress related, I’ve been told. However I slept last night aggravated it. My pillow was quite hard, as I remember.” Though his chin was tilted down towards the surface of the water, Poe caught the smirk still.

“Guess it’s only fair that I help, then.” Poe brushed his fingers over Armitage’s where they curled over his neck, moving them aside so he could replace them with his own.

Poe wasn’t formally trained in any way, but he liked empathetic touch, had been told in the past he could be a successful masseur, that he had a natural gift for it. Poe had never pursued that particular path, but he liked the idea of it, particularly liked the idea he could help make Armitage feel good. “I can’t say I’m as good as the masseur on Canto Bight but I’ve been told I give a pretty mean neck rub.”

“I’ll take gentle if it’s an option,” Armitage said while Poe shifted around to face his back. As Poe settled behind him Armitage turned his head to watch over the curve of his shoulder, pale eyes catching the reflection of light on the water and almost turning translucent. There was a trust there that Poe refused to break.

“I’ll be gentle,” Poe affirmed as he slid his hands over Armitage’s shoulders, up his neck, the softened water akin to a thin slick of oil. “Just tell me if I do something that bothers you.” Poe mapped the length Armitage’s neck, fingers flexing over the skin there with a light exploratory pressure. He felt tight all over, years of stress and strain culminating in a twisted shoulder girdle and a stiffened neck. Poe could feel a lifetime burrowed deep - all the sleepless nights, all the days hunched over a datapad, all the hours spent at strict attention under the hawkish gaze of the First Order military machine. “Armitage, not gonna lie, you’re kinda a mess.”

Armitage hummed in response, “I’m well aware.”

Poe curved his fingers around to Armitage’s throat, stroking under his chin, probing lightly beneath his jaw, then over it, catching at the tender spot between his ear and mandible. That drew a gasp out of Armitage, as his fingers discovered tension even there. “Damn, I can feel it in your jaw too.” Poe lingered, rubbing circles into the muscle, feeling as Armitage unraveled, just a little.

“That feels good,” Armitage sighed. It was a pretty sound, breathy and light, and Poe could imagine how Armitage’s face must look, lips parted, eyes closed, brows relaxed of their ever present furrow.

But when Poe moved on, one hand sliding around to the back of his neck, pressing flat along his cervical curve, the other gently cupping his throat, Poe felt Armitage grow, almost impossibly, more stiff.

“My throat…”

Poe paused, peering over Armitage’s shoulder to where he could see his reflection in the water. His face was obscured, but Poe heard his hesitancy, didn’t want to guess at what it meant.

“You can tell me,” Poe encouraged, trailing his hand away from Armitage’s throat, letting it come to rest over the cusp of his collarbones, touch gentle, culling, as he pulled Armitage closer - he sensed there was something important here, some not so deeply buried trauma.

“Have you ever been Force strangled?” Armitage asked softly, the words catching on a shuddering exhale, and Poe could only imagine the memories assuaging Armitage’s mind.

And no, Poe had never been strangled by the Force. Besides Kylo Ren’s interrogation, Poe’s physical experience with the Force had only ever been a kind, soothing touch. “No. No, I can’t say I have.” His voice sounded sad even in his own ears.

Armitage was silent, only the sound of his breathing audible over the rush of the wind in the bushes. Poe gave him all the time he needed, fingers tracing circles over the bones of his clavicle, their bodies barely brushing beneath the surface of the warm water. Poe wanted, desperately, to help Armitage, but he knew that not all help was healing - that the healing being done here was coming from within Armitage. All Poe could do was be at the ready for when he was needed.

Eventually, Armitage said, softly, “You may continue. I’d like it if you-” Poe felt the shift in his throat as he swallowed. “I’d like it if you tried, whatever it was you were going to do.”

“Alright.” Poe was shaking now, with anger, with grief, with the desire to personally strangle whoever had done this to Armitage. “Was it Ren or Snoke?”

“Both.”

Poe huffed out a breath, dropping his head to place a kiss on the bony protrusion at the base Armitage’s neck. “I don’t want to hurt you, Armitage.”

“You could never hurt me.” And if those words didn’t cut Poe down to the quick, he wasn’t sure anything else ever would. Because they were true - Poe couldn’t hurt Armitage, not in the same way the men in his past had, in the way that fissured scars from flesh and mind alike. Armitage was trembling, just barely, beneath Poe’s hands. But there were no tears, no harsh breaths, just an overwhelming desire for a kind empathetic touch - a touch that could, maybe, have the power to mend the memory of something far darker.

“Stars, Armitage.” Poe gathered himself, hand returning to hold Armitage’s throat, fingers to one side and thumb to the other, following the cords of muscle, touch light, testing. Where Poe’s hand was large, Armitage’s neck was slender - fitting into the cradle of his fingers as easily as if it belonged there. And when Poe applied just a little bit of pressure, Armitage swallowed again, adam’s apple bobbing into the cup of Poe’s palm. But he remained steady, calm, as Poe worked over him. He massaged into the the space where muscle inserted into the skull behind his ear, free hand once again smoothing over the back of his neck, rubbing gently. “This okay?”

“Yes," Armitage breathed out, head dropping forward, chin resting lightly on the top of Poe’s hand, “Yes, it feels- it feels nice.”

“Good. That’s really good,” Poe murmured, hoping his voice sounded steadier than he felt, as steady as his hands where they moved over Armitage’s throat, over the most vulnerable parts of him.

Armitage’s trust in him left Poe weak, filled him with a fluttering pulsating buoyancy that swept through his body and made him feel like he was tumbling in free fall. But he wasn’t falling, his hands on Armitage grounded him in a reality he never wanted to leave. And, Poe thought, if only they could stay here, alone on this ancient mountainside, hidden away from the rest of the world, veiled behind by these moments of quiet intimacy.

Poe removed his hand from the back of Armitage’s neck, replaced it with his lips, lingered there as he breathed in the scent of him, the warmth and the feel and the taste of him.

He drew back, pressing his lips to Armitage’s ear as he whispered, “Come here, I want to try something else.” And then he was drawing Armitage across the pool to the far edge with the violet bushes, where the rocks were smoothed over with moss and lichen. Guiding his hands out of the water to rest along the rocks, Poe stole a glance at Armitage’s face as he positioned him towards the edge. Armitage was lost in a place inside himself, eyes hooded, mouth soft - it was a good place, Poe could tell, a place of peace and surrender and Poe had no plans to break him from that. At least, not yet.

“Rest your forehead on your hands, like this.” Poe placed one of Armitage’s hands atop the other, so they created a cradle for his head. Armitage followed along, dropping his head down, shoulders in repose, the back of his neck long. Here, like this, Armitage could relax while Poe worked over him -and work him Poe did. His hands followed the length of his spine, thumbs tracing along the vertebrae, fingers smoothed over muscle, the heels of his hands pushing along in a deep reaching pressure. Armitage responded to his touch in the most delicate ways: a sigh when Poe pushed his fingers along the muscles of his upper back, a quiet gasp when he found a knot deep behind a shoulder blade, and a long drawn moan when Poe rubbed his fingers into the tender space at the base of his skull.

“That feel good?” Poe smiled to himself as Armitage nodded his head, the effect stifled when Poe pushed his fingers through his hair, finding tension even here along the fascia of his scalp. Armitage moaned again, a little louder, a little longer. And Poe couldn’t help but bite his lip and close his eyes, thoughts drifting to what else he could do to Armitage that would draw out _those_ sounds.

“Are you sure you aren’t a masseur?” Armitage breathed, drawing Poe out from his head and back to where Armitage was bowed beautifully before him.

“Should I be?” Poe teased, voice shaking only a little, hands wandering to Armitage’s shoulders and kneading along the muscles there, finding the meat of his neck and pressing deep. “Should I give up piloting and travel the galaxy doing this instead?”

Armitage moaned, cracked an eye open to peer up at him. His pupils were blown dark, glinting in the reflected light of the water. “No. Not for anyone else.” And then he shifted lower against the wall, his hips brushing Poe’s beneath the water - it was fleeting, maybe unintentional, just as likely not. Still, Poe’s swallow was thick, his chest heavy with desire, his cock filling at the idea of it. But, if Armitage _was_ toying with him, Poe wasn’t going to surrender first.

“Oh, so you want me to be your _personal_ masseur?” Poe leaned forward, gliding a hand up Armitage’s back and then pulling it down, pressing into his spine so it bowed against the pressure. If he stepped forward he could slot his hips into place against Armitage, could fit himself into the cleft there, could slip inside with likely very little resistance. Instead, Poe stayed where he was, hands traveling Armitage’s back, encouraging this rare relaxation, resisting the urge to take it further.

“ _Poe_ ,” Armitage gasped out, when the heel of Poe’s hand found a delicious little place high between his spine and shoulder blade that made Armitage devolve into whimpers.

“That’s it, there you go.” Poe curled his hand to the side and then dug in a little deeper, enjoying the cry it elicited, then soothed over the spot with a firm but gentled pressure. Poe smiled as he heard Armitage’s soft sounds taper off into gasping shallow breaths. _Stars,_ if he didn’t sound wrecked - all from a _massage_.

And he looked like a wreck now, too. Armitage’s hair was damp with steam, his face flushed from heat and the rush of blood alike, and his fingernails were buried in the layer of lichen where he gripped the edge of the pool. And then Poe saw the swell of his backside peeking out above the surface of the water, saw how he moved his hips in small furrowed rolls - almost unnoticeable, but Poe _knew_.

Poe’s control broke, just a little, at the sight. He reached one hand up to curve back around Armitage’s throat and slid the other down to his hip, leaning over Armitage’s back to press trembling lips to his spine. Like this, he couldn’t keep his hips from finding Armitage’s, from sliding flush against them, from seeking those little furrowed rolls. He didn’t try to keep his erection hidden, and Armitage did not draw away. Instead, he gasped quietly, his hands slipping over the rocks as he tried to find a better hold. Poe focused his attention on the kisses he placed on Armitage’s spine, the gentle hold he had on his throat, the firm grip that slipped from his hip to reach just a little further-

And found Armitage hard beneath the surface of the water.

“Stars, Hugs, you getting off on this?” He smiled the words into his spine.

Armitage moaned lowly as Poe’s fingers circled his erection, his hips giving a little jerk into the touch. “Like you’re _not_?” He rasped, and then Poe felt Armitage’s hips _drag_ along his erection, movements no longer small searching things but long and telling, as if he’d finally found what it was he had been looking for all along. Armitage was slick and wet and warm and entirely way too kriffing _perfect_ where he rubbed along Poe. And then he did it again, and _again_ -

Okay, so maybe Poe would accept defeat this time, maybe he would walk face forward into this surrender.

Poe moaned, low and broken as he encouraged Armitage into each roll. He lifted his hips to meet him, watched as his own erection broke the surface of the water with each shallow thrust, as he glided between Armitage’s cleft in a delicious slippery tease.

What Armitage wanted was clear, was obvious in the way his body sought and found all the places where the two of them connected. His weight was heavy, a pressure in Poe’s hand where his head hung, and though the grip on his erection was loose, he felt how Armitage angled himself in such a way to rub the tip along his palm, finding friction where he could. And when Armitage reached back, fingers grasping for and finding Poe’s hip, trying to pull him even closer - Poe nearly bit through his lip.

“Come here, come up here,” Poe released his erection as he pulled Armitage up and away from the wall, turning him around so Poe could cover his mouth with his own in a searching kiss. Pressed flush, skin to skin, hands holding the other close, Poe moaned into Armitage’s mouth. This was what _he_ wanted, a searing of flesh, their bodies pressed so close Poe couldn’t tell where he ended and Armitage began. It was intimate in a simple way, a physical connection enhanced by the water around them, the heat and the softness and the sensation of wind cooled skin - Poe’s nerves were alight with it all.

Sliding a hand to the back of Armitage’s neck, the other back to grasping his hip, Poe licked up into Armitage with an easy deliberate intention. Armitage’s mouth was hot and wet and opened to Poe without hesitation, and he whimpered when Poe’s slipped his leg between his, when he guided his hips to meet his own. His hands slipped over Poe’s sides, fingers curling against his ribs before circling around his back, holding Poe closer as he pressed himself into Poe with those tiny furrowed rolls.

This was better - closer, a little less hurried - fiery but still tender. Poe pressed simple slow kisses against Armitage’s lips, drawing Armitage along the edge of his desire rather than right to it, drawing them back into one another, where Poe could crowd Armitage’s defenses and find something better than a quick hurried fuck.

“Now who’s the tease?" Armitage huffed against him, strangled and slightly frustrated but full of mirth, of a humorous exasperation over Poe’s need to take things slow.

“Not a tease.” Poe grinned up at him as he found Armitage’s erection again, this time circling it with a firm hand, thumb rubbing along the soft underside of the tip. Armitage devolved into a shuddering moan, hips moving into Poe’s hold, the soft water slicking his way. Here, standing at the edge of the pool, their hips weren’t entirely submerged, and Poe watched as Armitage’s erection disappeared in and out of the curl of his fist. It was a sight that set Poe’s heart racing, breath catching in his own throat. _Stars_ how he wanted to make Armitage come again - and then again and _again_. He loved seeing him like this, flushed and halfway undone, seeking a pleasure from Poe that he’d never before allowed himself to find with another person.

And when Armitage reached for _Poe,_ hand skimming the surface of the water before wrapping around Poe’s erection - Poe nearly came undone himself. His hold was loose, questing, long fingers reaching around the girth of him with a tentative pressure. “Is this alright?” He asked Poe, voice soft, a little unsure, and Poe couldn’t help but moan _yes_.

“Yeah, yeah.” Poe pulled Armitage down into another kiss, a little less controlled, a little bit desperate - because Poe needed to come so badly, so very suddenly, as if all the last few weeks had finally caught up with him in one overwhelming moment of singular need. “Feels good, you feel so good, I want you so much, _Armitage_.”

They moved like that, together, caught in an open mouth kiss as their hands worked at one another, driving each other closer to climax in a not so slow race of pleasure. Poe was not going to last long, not as he was here with Armitage’s hand on him. He could already feel the tightness in his testicles, the deep seated coil of pleasure in his belly that precluded his orgasm, and by the way Armitage shook against him Poe thought he wasn’t all that far off either.

“Poe, I’m close,” Armitage whispered against his lips, breathy and soft, voice edged with need.

“Gonna try something.” When Poe reached around to slip his free hand over Armitage’s hip to grip his buttocks, he savored the gasp against his mouth. When Poe reached even _further,_ to run his fingers along his cleft, probing in a telling exploration, Armitage’s hand on Poe’s erection faltered, and then squeezed _tighter_.

“This okay?” Poe asked, voice barely above a whisper, as he skimmed over Armitage’s anus, knowing the answer before his words came, because Armitage was shifting his stance - spreading his legs - and _whining_ against his mouth.

“Yes, _Poe_ ,” Armitage moaned when Poe applied a brush of pressure, nothing more.

“Yeah?” Poe dipped his fingers into the water, traced up the sensitive skin at the inside of Armitage’s thigh, drawing slick lines across his skin until he reached his anus again, where he dragged his fingertips back and forth along the puckered muscle, hand still moving over his cock but slower now, letting Armitage focus on this new sensation, keeping him from the edge of his orgasm. And Armitage _moaned_ , low and broken, while hips hips pushed back at Poe’s fingers, and then forward into his hand. “Want me inside?”

“Fuck-” Armitage gasped as Poe caught his thumb at the edge of the muscle, just enough to pull at him, but not penetrating. “-Fucking _tease_.”

Poe gave Armitage’s cock a long slow pump while he slipped the very tip of his thumb inside, just barely, only enough to tease a breach, “Gotta say yes.”

Instead Armitage gave Poe’s erection a punishing squeeze while pressing the pad of his thumb against his tip to rub into his slit. Poe gasped, hips jerking into the sensation, hands tightening their grip on Armitage, thumb reflexively pulling at his rim - opening him up - just a fraction but _enough_.

Enough that Armitage was able to push back into Poe’s grip, push himself back onto his _thumb_ , seeking and finding the penetration that Poe playfully withheld. The _sound_ that Armitage made as he opened for Poe, a drawn out and broken thing, was almost as beautiful as his face - mouth parted, eyelids fluttering, brows drawn together and up - and his cheeks, which were the prettiest flush of pink Poe had ever seen-

Poe _moaned_. He surged up into Armitage, capturing his mouth at the same time that he crooked his thumb, spreading Armitage open all the more, anchoring himself inside while his hand worked Armitage’s cock and his mouth pressed hot wet words against his parted lips. “This what you want? Want me inside you? Want me to fill you up?”

“Yes, _Poe-_ ” Armitage gasped his name into his mouth again and again, a mantra, a plea, as his body went rigid, consumed by Poe’s hands, his mouth and his own pleasure. Poe's thumb wasn’t enough to reach his prostate, but Poe could tell it was the stretch, the simple idea of a deeper penetration that set Armitage off. Poe twisted his wrist, slipped his thumb a little deeper, slid his fingers into the space behind Armitage's balls and then pressed them _up_ \- Armitage gasped, and the cried out, and then devolved into a whimpering mess.

"That's it, open up for me." Poe's voice shook with his own pleasure, Armitage's fist faltering over his cock in a rough way that Poe liked, even while Armitage's coordination suffered from this assault of sensation. So Poe took pity on him, shifted his grip on Armitage’s erection so he could wrap his fist in a loose hold around both their cocks, and that was so much _better._ They slid against one another in a delirious slick friction, skin to skin, slick with water and precome alike, and Poe felt his own body coil tight and ready.

"Come for me Armitage," Poe rasped the words out, a command that sounded like a plea, and Armitage came undone. His hands lifted into Poe’s hair and held tight as he pressed into Poe’s mouth and breathed a _sob_ against his lips, hips shuddering, anus clenching, as he came and came and _came_.

Poe swallowed the sounds, burned them into the memory of this moment, as he chased Armitage over the edge, drawing down his own pleasure in a searing streak of light.

-

There were certain things about Poe Dameron Hux wasn’t sure he’d ever entirely understand. That he could drink an entire pot of caf and still maintain that sleepy doe-eyed look was as least baffling in a charming way. That he had the reflexes of an ace pilot but seemed to take on everything else in life with a slow lazy ease was another. That he did both these things while commanding a small army of riff-raff that had defeated the military junta Hux had spent his life grooming himself to lead into galactic glory was a whole other something Hux had stopped even _trying_ to understand.

But it was mostly that Poe Dameron had taken an interest in _him_ that left Hux flailing for an explanation. And that he, Armitage Hux, returned that interest - returned it enough to abscond the remnants of the only life he had ever known and follow Poe Dameron across the planet to the edge of a mountainside in some sexual _tryst_ …well, Hux understood that, at least.

He had _feelings_ for Poe Dameron, and Hux knew what those feelings meant.

“By the force, I swear you’re cheating,” Poe muttered from Hux’s lap, fingers swiping over his datapad as he attempted to counter Hux’s latest attack, his army falling piecemeal to Hux’s superior strategizing. “Droids shouldn’t be able to parry my knights like that, not when I took out your shield generator.”

“Shields aren’t everything Dameron, and your knights are flesh and blood, they not only slow when injured, but by nature they are bound to grow weak of will as well.” Hux waited patiently for Poe to end his turn. There were only so many available moves left to him, and Hux knew how to handle them all.

“You can’t tell me you programmed human nature into your game sim,” Poe sighed as he ended his turn, laying his datapad on his chest and looking up from where he had his head reclined in Hux’s lap.

“I programmed human nature into my game sim.”

“ _Stars_ , you’re a piece of work Hugs.” Poe’s laugh carried on the wind, startling a pair of small birds from a nearby tree. The sound of their wings taking flight was loud in the quiet peace of approaching twilight.

“I’m aware. Your move, Dameron.” Hux concluded his turn by choosing a series of low level droids, sending them chasing after Poe’s retreating knights, knowing they would die in the altercation but slow the knights enough for Hux’s force beast to finish wiping out Poe’s resource camp.

“Do you even _think_ about your moves?” Poe’s voice lifted with disbelief as he looked at his datapad. “They’re _gone_. My resources are all _gone._ ”

Yes, Hux had _feelings_ for Poe Dameron, and Hux knew well what those feelings meant. But he would enjoy every moment of _this_ while he could, while he was able.

“Do you surrender or should I continue with your complete demise?”

“If I surrender do I get to become the personal prisoner of war for the smokin’ hot general who defeated me?”

Hux snorted, “No, he’ll use you for political gain when he bargains your life in exchange for galactic strongholds.”

“Hugs. You’re joking aren’t you? This isn’t some allusion to real life, right?” Poe was laughing but there was a manic edge to the sound that felt panicked.

Hux blinked down at Poe, “No?”

“Okay good, because I’m alright if you just wanted to take me prisoner. Ya know, like a sex slave, I’d be okay with that.”

“Dameron, you _do_ realize we’re only playing a game sim?” Hux accepted Poe’s surrender, triggering the VICTORY screen and the flashing stars that accompanied it.

“Yeah, yeah. But, it’s an option, right? If all this goes south and Palpatine rises again and the Order returns for you and the Resistance has already disbanded. You’ll just make me your sex slave, right? Wanna be clear on my options, just in case.”

Hux, carefully, set his codepad aside. “Palpatine is not going to rise again and if the Order comes for me, I will certainly not return to them. And you would make an awful sex slave Dameron, you are uncomfortably keen on the idea.”

“Damn Hugs, just crush my dreams, why don’t you.” Poe’s grin was wide, his eyes shining with mirth, and Hux couldn’t help but indulge him, just a little.

“Alright. I’ll recondition you as my ace pilot, and we’ll meet for forbidden _dalliances_ in your TIE. I would want to take advantage of all your skill sets, you understand. Satisfied?”

“Hugs, babe, did you just compliment my piloting?”

Hux couldn't entirely hide his smirk, “I stand by my earlier assessment. You are a maniac, but I supposed it serves a purpose.” And when Poe beamed up at him, Hux felt his smirk widen into a smile to mirror Poe’s. The small warmth that simmered away at the sight of Poe like this, at ease in Hux’s lap, gazing up at him with an expression Hux had never seen directed at anyone, let alone himself - it strung Hux along in a desperate desire for this to be his - for this to be the rest of his life.

But Hux was no fool. The universe had strung him along before, had demonstrated time and time again what it thought Hux deserved, and _this_ was certainly not it.

But Poe made it feel like it could be, he made it feel like it could be this easy.

Poe offered Hux something beyond a physical affection, he offered Hux a moment of happiness. He offered him a set series of memories Hux could look back on when the tide of his life inevitably drew him back to the deep dark places he had come from. Poe was a burning beacon of light amongst his shadows, and Hux drew some comfort in that Poe seemed to burn all the brighter despite it.

So he knew he should warn Poe. Fate was a cruel mistress and while Poe might have spent his life evading her reach, Hux was a creature of circumstance, molded from the very fabric of her veil. Born not of love but of violence, raised on the virtues of survival and power, his legacy of death long ago precluded by the very nature of his upbringing…Hux knew these things about him were immutable. Fate would find him again, it was but a simple matter of time.

But there was something to be said about playing a part in Poe’s fantasy. Hux had thought, for a moment, when this all began, that maybe there _was_ another path for him. But after the Academy, after the knowledge that even the most innocent, the most precious amongst them could not be absolved of fate’s heavy hand…Hux understood that not even Poe Dameron’s fortune could save _him_.

“Armitage, you okay?”

Hux felt Poe’s fingers on his cheek, his softened voice and softer touch drawing his attention down to where Poe watched him, face inscrutable in the darkening night.

“I’m sorry, Poe.”

“What for?”

Hux placed his hand on Poe’s chest, felt the steady beat of his heart under his bare palm, felt how closely it matched his own.

As night fell over their campsite, they gathered their supplies under the cover of their shelter. The heavy clouds of earlier had become bloated with rain, and the mountainside rustled before the oncoming storm. Hux could see it forming over the ocean, a gathering of flickering light and clouds, thunder rolling across the water and closing the distance in a wall of trembling sound. The storm harried at the edges of the mountain, white capped waves crushing against the rock, the beginnings of rain carried on the wind, pattering lightly across the ground, hissing across the still smoldering campfire.

Hux stowed their electronic equipment within the tent they had pitched earlier when the clouds had not disbursed with the afternoon sun, while Poe tarried in the oncoming rain in order to cover his speeder in a plastivinyl tarp.

Hux admired Poe from afar, from within the shelter of their tent, boots tucked into a corner, legs curled under him where he sat on their sleeping pad, codepad charging beside him. Like yesterday in the hangar bay, Poe doted on his speeder - tying down the tarp to keep out the impending wet while insuring it was somewhat sheltered from the wind by securing it along the tree line. There was yet time before the rain started in earnest, but in this, Poe left nothing to chance. The speeder was precious to him in a way that felt personal, like it was more than a piece of equipment. And the way he tended to it felt natural, as if Poe knew the right and proper way to care for all things, and took joy in administering that care. It reminded Hux of how Poe’s hands had felt earlier, the mindful touches to his neck, his throat, and deeper still, the touches to his most vulnerable parts - all tender and careful and knowing and entirely more than Hux deserved…Hux collected those memories, preserved them in a place he kept far beneath the surface of thought, where the sound of his mother’s voice slept, out of reach of even the most powerful force touch.

Eventually, this would end. In the most simple way, they would return to the base tomorrow, and with it return to a life of responsibility that left no room for this kind of affection. But more so, Poe was the general of an enemy army. And more than that, he was the face of the Resistance, the poster boy of New Republic heroism.

Here, on this mountainside, far removed from the moral eye of society and the pressures of responsibility, they could have this. But tomorrow, that would change. And while at first Poe would persevere, would insist they could have it all, that their pasts didn’t matter and their futures were their own, Hux knew it was all a fantasy. Maybe it would take weeks, maybe months - years, if he was lucky - but eventually, Poe would grow weary of Hux, he would grow exhausted of the sacrifices he had to make, resentful of the friends and relationships he would loose, bitter that the man they called _Starkiller_ soured his reputation, stifled his future.

But Hux was selfish. He wanted Poe Dameron, and he wanted to believe him when he made Hux feel like they could have this. He wanted to tempt fate and take something for himself that wasn’t power or survival - he wanted the things Poe Dameron made him feel. He wanted him, and he was weak to him, and Hux knew what weakness wrought.

“Looks like a big storm coming.” Poe’s head dipped into the opening of the tent, curls moistened across his forehead and shoulders damp with the drizzle that was now falling in earnest. “Hope the wind doesn’t change direction so that we can watch it without getting soaked. And so the tent doesn’t blow away with us in it.” His grin should have been contagious, but Hux couldn’t bring himself to match it, could only reach for Poe and beckon him inside.

Poe climbed into the tent and kicked his boots off, tucking them into the same corner Hux had put his, and then climbing across the sleeping pad to press into Hux’s side. While his skin was cool with wet, his hands were warm where they touched Hux, firm and steady along his arm and waist, strong where they pulled at him - where they pulled him into Poe’s side. The storm was picking up outside the tent, but here under the curl of Poe’s arm, Hux felt safe, protected. And it hurt. It hurt so much.

“Hey, you sure you’re okay?” Poe’s lips brushed his hair as he spoke, breath traveling across his skin and leaving gooseflesh in its wake.

“I’ll be alright.” Hux closed his eyes, turned his face into Poe’s neck, breathed in slow and deep. He wouldn’t cry. He _wouldn_ _’t_. “I wish we could stay like this.”

“Armitage.” Poe’s hand lifted to trace his jaw, fingers tucking his loosened hair behind his ear. And Hux leaned into those touches, burned their memories into nerves and flesh and mind and everything that mattered, “Once you get through to the rest of the Order we can come back. We can go anywhere then. We’ll take a really long vacation, maybe a permanent one. We’ll figure it out.”

And Poe made it all sound so simple - he made it feel like it really could be this easy.

“Hmm.” Hux would play his part well, he would indulge this fantasy. He would let himself be, for as long as he was allowed, happy with Poe Dameron. “We might never have the chance, if we wait on my reaching the Order.”

“No brilliant ideas yet? You really think they’re out there hiding still?”

“Yes.” It was the truth, Hux knew it. If the Finalizer could limp her way here to an enemy base, Kylo Ren onboard or not, then the other ships were out there too - fighting to survive, hiding from a threat that festered within the Order they had once entrusted that very survival to. “They’re out there. They’re running out of time though. The old guard will find them if I don’t soon.”

Out here, this far from the base, and without a satellite or even a New Republic star cruiser in Ajan Kloss’ orbit to provide a holonet signal, they were entirely cut off from the rest of the world. Hux imagined this might be a little of how those Order ships felt: isolated, beleaguered by a command they had once relied upon, hounded by the very men and women who had vowed to see them to glory. Hux had agreed with Leia, that his leaving would be a terrible set back for his work. But the truth was that Hux was out of ideas, he didn’t know what to try next. Reaching those ships over the Order’s net was their best chance, but their comms only pinged. By that alone Hux knew they were, in the least, not space dust. But like ghost ships amoored in deep space, they were only a shadow of a presence that left no trace, drifting just outside the Finalizer’s reach with no anchor, no point of contact.

Hux was out of ideas beyond physically searching all of space itself.

Outside their tent, the storm frenzied to life. Lightning flashed like sparks in the pan of the sky, alighting the clouds in hot fushcias and cool watery blues, strikes of pure white fissuring the sky open, the ocean scattering their remains in electrostatic waves. The thunder followed close behind. Deep and rumbling, it rolled though Hux’s bones and settled belly deep. Hux wondered what those enormous sea creatures did during a storm like this, when wind and lightning turned their home violent and deathly, the surface of the water alight with electricity, the waves so strong they crushed the rocks free from the cliff side.

Even here, tucked away into the mountain, wind sheared walls of rain across the campsite. A rhythmic fluxing of sound pummeled their tent as the water hit the side in waves and the wind howled around them, but Poe had predicted right - the angle was good, and the water did not reach the dry space inside. And, Hux mused, as the world outside their tent tumulted in a ghastly fervor, how he could feel so at peace, so _safe,_ when the only thing protecting him from that storm was a thin slip of plastivinyl and a man who knew no fear.

Hux closed his eyes, turned his face back into Poe’s neck, and breathed him in - all the leather and grease and that deep earthy scent that was entirely unique to Poe. Hux sighed into it, made space to breath in more, and felt as his mind quieted, filled instead with thunder and rain and a warmth in the dark.

“Too bad you couldn’t send them a secret message, like the code you and Phasma use.”

A spark, a flash in the pan of his mind, flared to life.

“Dameron.” Hux pulled out from under Poe’s arm, turning slowly to stare at him, to stare _into_ him. Poe’s eyes were dark, hooded as they gazed up at him, entirely unaware of his own brilliance, but that didn’t even _matter_ \- “Dameron, you are a _genius_.”

“Whoa, Hugs, are you _sure_ you’re okay?” Poe was grinning at him, and though Hux knew it was just - stars, it was just a _lucky shot -_ he also knew it could work. It _would_ _work_.

“I can reach them through _Force_. I can, theoretically, push a software update for the sim. I can send them a _message_.” Hux knew he was blathering, but he could not stop the words, not now that the idea had manifested, now that he knew what to _do_. “The language will have to be coded, as to not flag the security algorithms, and I’ll have to be careful with the data payload, because my credentials are compromised, but _Force_ is an anonymous publisher anyway. It is possible - it is _better_ than possible. This will work, Poe. I truly believe this will _work_.”

“Armitage, you’re serious?” Poe pushed back into his space, fingers touching his cheek as his dark eyes searched Hux’s face. “You are serious.” The smile came at the heel of his words, Poe’s grin infectious - or maybe it was _Hux_ _’s_ own excitement that infected _Poe_. “But how do you know if the other ships even play Force?”

Hux stared at Poe, unsure if he was serious - unsure if he should be _offended._ “Of course they play. It’s _fun_ , why _wouldn_ _’t_ they play?”

And then Poe was laughing, rumbling low and belly deep, and the sound rolled through Hux like thunder.

-

Incoming Transmission

…

Recipient: Resistance Leader Princess Leia Skywalker Organa Solo

Security Clearance: Confidential

Time Stamp: 35 ABY 10:15:23:44

…

Message to Follow:

…

…

Greetings Princess Organa,

On behalf of the acting Senate of the New Republic, first allow us to personally apologize for the archaic method of communique. In respect for the sensitive situation you are without a doubt handling, and without wishes to interrupt the work of which you are performing, we send this message ahead to announce the Senate’s decision to assign five of our number to assist you in your endeavor to barter official terms of surrender with the First Order.

We acknowledge this decision is long over due, and we hope you accept our sincerest apologies that we did not organize this assistance earlier. In light of the recent events regarding the Academy, the Senate has realized our failure to provide direct guidance and support to your cause has has placed an undue hardship upon you and your resources. We recognize that it is our duty as the acting leadership of the Galactic Republic to ease the Resistance of this responsibility and assume command of your efforts, where appropriate.

Please be assured that we in no means intend to beleaguer the work your forces have already performed. Your continued reports regarding the recovery and rehabilitation of those First Order under your supervision have painted a compelling and hopeful picture of peace and prosperity for the Galaxy, the Outer Rim, and beyond, and we wish to further your efforts via the additional resources the New Republic Senate can provide.

Our holo address will follow this transmission, and we ask that you call on us as soon as your time allows. We are en-route to your location and will be arriving within the next standard half cycle.

For the Future of our Galaxy,

Senator Fineas Ofant,

Director of New Media, Public Affairs

...

End Transmission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, you thought that happy ending had arrived already? I'm so sorry, I'm so so sorry. Intermission is over kids, get ready for the 3rd act.
> 
> Full Disclosure: This and chapter 5 nearly wrecked me, and I have no idea why. You know that numb feeling after you've had a good cry? Something like that has happened to me, but with words. I'm broke right now friends but doing what I can where I can.


	7. Begin Recording

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings for this chapter, just plot ♥

Armitage Hux was good at games.

After all, his childhood had been a game of avoiding Brendol’s beatings - a test of Armitage’s wits as much as a lesson in futility. Armitage learned, eventually, that there truly was no avoiding Brendol, not when he was in one of _those_ moods. But, sometimes he found he could skirt the danger just enough, dance around worst of it with a few simple words, a quick turn of the conversation - distractions and decoys that could divert the blows from his face to his backside, fists turned to slaps, kicks into shoves. He liked to pretend he could control at least that much, even if the nights he spent curled into his bunk at the Academy, the voices of the other boys drifting beyond the cover of his blanket, body a shivering broken bruise, made it all feel incredibly, completely hopeless.

As he grew into adolescence, the beatings turned to words - scathing things whose wounds settled into his psyche, carved themselves into the recesses of thoughts that formed no words but guided him in the way instinct guided a wild animal. It was then that Armitage’s game took on a deeper facet. The little tricks he’d learned as a child developed into an actual strategy of avoidance and de-escalation. As before, his success was entirely dependent upon Brendol’s mood, but Armitage was able to predict those moods - knew what each meant, what he could get away with, what would push his father over the edge.

As an adult, he began to utilize those moods.

While disciplining a child of eight might appear reasonable to a visiting commandant, verbally assaulting a young man of twenty was just as likely to cast Brendol in the shadow of weakness as it was to hurt Armitage’s reputation with high command. So, Armitage knew just what to do to manipulate his father into a harried annoyance, a simmering anger, an unadulterated rage…and he used that knowledge to his benefit. The satisfaction of watching his father fly off into a spitting frenzy, even when he was the object of that anger, it made Armitage feel in control. It was a small thing, a quiet satisfaction beneath the louder emotions of fear and humiliation, but it was enough. Enough that he could stomach his father’s words and ridicule, ignore the the acerbic looks of his peers, and pursue his goals from the closed door of emotion - His focus honed on the desire to confute his father and achieve everything he could not.

But when Snoke entered Armitage’s life, the real game began. Whatever abuse his father had subjected him to paled in the face of Snoke’s ability to strip Armitage of every strategic defense he had built to protect himself.

Snoke’s abuse manifested through the Force, and from the Force Armitage had no defense. Unshielded and exposed, the suffering wrought from this brand of abuse soured even the private construct of a person Armitage had built for himself. The strong capable person he had spent his life protecting from Brendol withered under the invasive internal gaze of Snoke. Snoke laid bare Armitage’s every shortcoming, exposed weaknesses of his very character, and crafted failure from his greatest successes.

Whatever Snoke saw in him, or whatever he failed to find, left Armitage grasping for the threads of a self-worth that had already proved to be too fractured and too brittle. The game had changed, and if Armitage wanted to survive he would have to rethink his tactics, develop a new strategy - he would need to learn Snoke’s rules.

It took time, but Armitage was smart and he was patient, and eventually he mastered this game too. He crafted for Snoke a persona of practical use but little threat: Ambitious, but not without scope. Committed to the First Order’s cause, but not blindly fanatical. A clever schemer, but loyal.

Unhinged, but not dangerous, because he was without Force. And if there was one rule to Snoke’s game, it was that the Force was the only thing that creature would ever fear.

It had worked. Snoke had been convinced. His delving into Armitage’s mind subsided, satisfied with the quality of man he found beneath the surface of Armitage’s thoughts - convinced that his rabid cur was nothing more than a pawn he himself had maneuvered into place on his board.

And Armitage had exploited every opportunity Snoke’s favor presented, conspiring a position of power in the Order the likes of which would have left his father aghast. He consolidated his allies amongst all ranks and positions, strategically eliminated his enemies by death or by reassignment, and climbed to the top of a food chain that suffered from a surplus of predators and not enough prey. And while the rest of higher command fought and snarled amongst one another, vying for Snoke’s approval or grovelling at the feet of the old guard, Armitage gathered his resources, kept his allies fat and happy, and bided his time for when it was _his_ game that the First Order would play.

But then Kylo Ren entered into the fray of Armitage’s life and, in the end, it had not been his own or Brendol’s or Snoke’s game that the First Order was forced to play. It had been Ren’s. And Armitage’s last move had been thwarted by fate herself, victory stolen from him, dashed across the star spanned universe that had been his game board, his strategy felled by a force that played by no man’s rules, least of all those crafted by Armitage Hux.

-

The code was simple enough, in the end. Armitage wondered, not for the first time that morning, how the solution to reaching the Order had ended up as elegant as a carefully crafted secret message.

His update of _Force_ was a small payload of text and a smattering of binary, the message as forward as it could be, coded in a language only meant to fly below the radar of the security algorithms, without worry of catching the greater gaze of the old guard. Because the old guard didn’t play _Force._ Oh, they were likely aware of it, they might even turn a blind eye or outright forbid it aboard their ships. But it was that very generational nature of the game sim that would protect his plan from the most important obstacle he had thus far struggled to overcome. The gatekeepers to his generation of the Order would be defeated not by some grand strategy, but a simple miscalculation - a willful blindness to the youth amongst them.

So, the plan was simple enough, in the end - and simple would not be what Order command would expect from General Hux.

“Awake already?” Poe’s voice drifted on the cool morning breeze, settling onto Hux as the dew settled onto the trees. The pot of caf he had put to brew had finally done the trick and Poe smiled at him from where he lay on their sleeping pad, eyes half-lidded with sleep, hair mussed into a dark mess, body curled in a shadow of the hold that had held Hux all night. Hux looked away, took the caf from the heat to cool. Poe, in turn, watched him, gaze careful, knowing, seeing through Armitage as surely as he saw through his deflection of his question.

Because it was questionable if he had ever fallen asleep at all, certainly not long enough to claim he had ever _awoken_. The storm had raged all night, confining Hux and Poe to their tent, twined together in an evening of soft touches and few words. Poe had held him, much like that first night together. But unlike that first night, his arms around Hux were possessive, desperate, as if Poe could hear the thoughts in Hux’s head - all the worry and doubt and unease, a storm of emotion that had swept through him as surely as the storm swept across the mountainside.

Hux had welcomed Poe’s touch, fighting a torrent of conflicting emotions: hope and excitement over his plan to finally reach the Order, and the perfidious crawl through the mire of his darker psyche, where _this_ all ended the moment they abandoned their mountainside. Hux recognized the anxiety for what it was, the insidious thoughts taking advantage of the weakness this trip had wrought of him. Poe inspired a vulnerability Hux had never shared with another, not since he was a child clinging to his mother’s skirts. Brendol had beaten what he could out of him, and Snoke had finished the job when Hux had ascended into his direct command.

But Poe, Poe had come along and encouraged Hux to dig free everything he thought he had buried in his climb through First Order ranks, leaving those raw parts of him exposed and defenseless - nothing but Poe’s kind words and gentle touch a balm on old wounds.

 _I_ _’m ruined_. He had said as much to Poe, the night he returned from the Academy, and he had thought it truth for far longer. Hux still wasn’t sure if he could be fixed, but he thought if anyone might provide him with the right tools, it would be Poe Dameron.

He gave the game sim one last debug, read over his message one final time, and then he tucked his codepad safely into his bag. Poe watched him quietly, readily accepted the cup of caf Hux offered and welcomed Hux back into place beside him, tucked under the curve of his arm. Hux placed his hand atop Poe’s thigh, fingertips rubbing the weft of the fabric into his memory. Soon they would head back to the base, and with it, back to a life that left no room for things like quiet mornings and quieter moments.

“Wanna talk about it?” Poe was onto him, though. Hux shook his head and Poe said nothing else as he held Hux, because words were unnecessary when a physical touch could say so much more. And for all the words Poe liked to use, it was his gentle knowing touches that Hux felt said the most. Hux let himself have this. Let himself close his eyes and silence his thoughts and exist in this singular space in time where they weren’t General Hux of the First Order and Rebel Ace Pilot Poe Dameron, but Armitage and Poe, two men on a mountainside admiring the slow creep of dawn into day.

They packed in their camp after giving the sun an opportunity to warm away the rain and dry their supplies. By the time he and Poe mounted the speeder to begin the ride back, the sun was cresting the tree tops and the tide of morning was turning towards noon. The clouds of the prior day were absent, spent with the rain, leaving Ajan Kloss’s sky bare and blue, the air warm but dry, the humidity Hux had begun to acclimate to chased away by the storm.

Their descent down the mountain was harrowing. The path along the steep cliff side switched back with the wall of rock that overlooked the sea. And, though Poe handled his speeder with ease, Hux clung to him, suddenly terrified of tumbling over the edge. He imagined he would survive the fall, body hitting the water only to be swallowed alive by one of the sea creatures that lurked beneath the waves, childhood memories surfacing of the stories his mother told of Niseag snatching up local fishermen who cast their nets too close to their territory. She had laughed when she told him those stories, spooking a small Armitage with scary tales before bedtime, fingers crawling up his sides in an echo of his shivers, lips a warm soothing press to his forehead.

Hux hadn’t thought of Arkanis or his mother in a long, long time, but the last few days had set free a torrent of his past. Whether it was the sea creatures or the breaking white water waves or the violence of the storm that dislodged the memories, Hux recognized that these too had been things he had long ago buried - remnants of his life that Hux suspected he harbored for safe keeping, rather than pushed away with the trauma that more often haunted his past.

More likely, it was Poe who dislodged the memories - who inspired Hux to remember the good things within him, however few and frail they happened to be. 

As they left the mountainside behind and Ajan Kloss swallowed them into its rolling jungle sprawl, Hux finally found himself lulled into the peace that had eluded him all night. Here, pressed into Poe’s back, cheek to his shoulder, eyes closed against the whipping wind, the trilling whir of the speeder’s engine dulling the sound of his own thoughts, he unraveled, just a little. He savored the feel of Poe under his palms, the rise and fall of his chest, the shifting of his muscles under skin, the deep rumble of his voice caught in a gasping laugh when Hux’s hands strayed too low on his stomach - he was ticklish there, he realized. Hux filed the information away alongside everything else he had learned about Poe over the course of the last two days, all the touches and sounds and words and stories. And the feelings - both his own and those he knew Poe felt for him - feelings that were becoming ever familiar in the landscape of his mind.

Maybe Poe was right, maybe this wasn’t all a fantasy. Maybe, if happiness was _this_ , small moments spent in fleeting mental serenity, enjoying the simple pleasures of a physical existence from the safety of the familiar…maybe he _could_ have that life, some day, eventually. He allowed himself to think of what that life might look like, drawing down an image of a future that looked nothing like anything Hux had ever imagined for himself before.

Hux sighed into Poe’s shoulder, let his fingers curl into the hold on his stomach, and drifted into a delicate daydream.

"Armitage?" They had reached the wild flower field that skirted the edge of the swamp leading back to the base. Poe was looking over his shoulder, eyebrows raised and smile wide as Hux blinked sleep from his eyes. "Wanna give Chirrup a spin?"

"I..." Hux trailed off, the question almost lost to the wind and his sleep as Hux sorted reality from dream and found the edges blurred. Poe laughed and slowed the speeder to a stop, encouraging them to swap places.

“Come on, you’ll enjoy it, I promise,” he insisted, because it was _fun_ and Hux obviously needed more fun in his life. He gave in, because really, what excuse did he have? Hux was quickly running out of excuses for Poe.

And maybe it was worth it for the feel of Poe at his back, warm and strong and just a little overwhelming.

“Have you really never piloted a speeder before?” Poe’s hands cradled his, guiding them along Chirrup’s controls, touch firm and controlled, skin warm and calloused. There was a familiarity to Poe's touch now that struck quietly at Hux, quickening his heart in a way that left him breathless.

“Not a swoop speeder, but it’s not as if I haven’t piloted a vehicle before, Dameron.” Hux followed along, allowing Poe to maneuver his body in ways that should have felt foolish, embarrassing. But soon they were skirting through the field as Poe instructed him with an open affability that left no room for awkwardness. Poe was a _good_ instructor: kind, patient, and generous with praise. And Hux responded to his words, ached for more.

“Well, you’re a natural. I thought you’d be more skittish after the ride out here.” Poe’s hands abandoned Hux’s to the controls, now that Hux had a hang of the handling. They skated over his thighs, touch light, lingering only a little, before settling on his hips. Hux pushed into the touch, dropped his head for a quick glance over his shoulder and met Poe’s eyes where they stared up at him. His face warmed in a way that wasn’t from the sun.

Hux looked away, when Poe grinned wide. “You nearly flew us off a cliff, if memory serves.” Hux heard Poe’s laugh in his ear, his stubbled cheek brushing his neck as he hooked his chin over Hux’s shoulder. Hux decided that yes, there was something to be said of their reversed positions, and that he didn’t mind so much that Poe was taking every opportunity to exercise his advantageous place behind him. In fact, he quite _liked_ this. “How do I go faster?”

“Just roll forward on the throttle. She loves to fly, she handles best when she’s opened up a bit.”

Hux, experimentally, gave the speeder its head.

They jumped forward, the controls responding to the hairs-breadth quirk of his wrists, the acceleration quick but smooth, refined in a way Hux had not expected. Poe _whooped_ behind him, the hands on Hux’s hips sliding around his waist, his arms warm and strong where they wrapped around him. Hux breathed into the hold, felt how Poe moved with him, how he pressed into him, firm and sure and entirely trusting of Hux’s ability to pilot his speeder.

Chirrup trilled beneath them as Hux gave her even more speed.

He was enjoying _this._ The rush of adrenaline left him feeling weightless and free, as if he could momentarily outrun the erosion of his thoughts, momentarily forget everything but _this._ The tethers of the world fell away and left Hux here, with Poe, on the back of his precious childhood speeder, racing across a field of wild flowers on a planet as far removed from anything he had ever known, subsumed by a sensation of ethereality, as if he’d somehow shucked the mantle of the man he had been to be reborn as something wholly new and different. Hux chanced a smile, nursed the feeling, hoped with enough care it might _stick_.

A flash of white, ahead, a pale scar across the verdant horizon.

And with it, a distant feeling, a touch of warning.

Something was _wrong_.

Now and again, Hux wondered if his years spent under the command of Snoke had not resulted in his becoming tainted with the Force. There were occasions in his life where he was able to read the ebbs and flows of a moment, where he was able to dodge death as surely as if he’d seen it’s approach: when he’d nearly blasted Ren in Snoke’s throne room. When he’d spent a year spying under the nose of the Supreme Council. And again, when Poe had dragged him from the Steadfast while Hux begged to be left behind, because he knew death waited for him, and he had sought it with the eager yearning of a man who had already given up everything else of himself.

Now, again, it whispered in his ear. Words caught on the cusp of sound, an idea of a thought, seeding deep, taking root, spreading like _rot._

“Is that Rey?” Poe’s voice cut through to Hux, and he realized he’d directed the speeder straight towards what was fast becoming a person sized wedge of white. And it was Rey. The shape of the girl emerged before them, still some distance out but obvious now that Poe had named her, obvious now that Hux felt the touch of her Force, reaching for them across the waves of wild flowers, aching with a desperate tinge of warning, of _danger_.

“Poe.” Hux whispered his name, silent with the wind, whisked away with his breath.

“Somethings up.” And there should have been a comfort there, that Poe could feel it too - instead Hux drowned in his own terror, cold and coiling and forever familiar, stealing his breath as surely as it stole his control. His hands faltered over Chirrups controls, the speeder jerking below them, the whir of the engine fluttering weakly alongside Hux’s heart. “Hey, hey, I’ve got you.” Poe’s hands covered his, held him steady. It wasn’t _enough_.

The distance closed quickly, the pale green of the meadow giving way to a vision of Rey upon her own speeder as she flew towards them. Her body glowed in the mid day sun, the whites of her garments catching and reflecting the light, a beacon in Hux’s narrowing vision. Poe slowed Chirrup as he directed it with the grip of a single hand, free arm circling Hux's waist and holding him close, sensing Hux’s unsteadiness, his sudden weakness. He clung to that arm, clawed at the _comfort_ Poe provided. But it was a viscous and intangible thing, and he felt as it slipped through his fingers - felt as _Poe_ slipped through his fingers.

“Rey!” Poe shouted, as they slowed to a stop, Chirrup settling into a hover before lowering to the ground. From her speeder Rey waved. From another vantage, it might appear friendly, eagerly welcoming, but Hux saw the rigid line of her back, the way she stood over the seat of her speeder like a jockey in the seat of a saddle. And there was no escaping the sensation of her Force, the primordial power of it filling his head and clogging his thoughts. Hux squeezed his eyes shut, drew in a shuddering breath, became acutely aware of the sensation of Poe’s warmth retreating from his back, his hand sliding from his grip, from his waist. Hux’s hands closed over vacant space, leaned back into a breathless breeze.

Anchorless and empty, surrounded by nothing but air, Hux’s eyes flew open, _searching-_

Poe’s hand closed over his, touch warm, grip strong. Poe stood beside the speeder, body turned half towards him but head facing the direction from which Rey approached. She closed the distance quickly, her speeder slowing into a skidding stop before them, kicking up dirt and pollen as it settled into the softened earth. Her breath was coming in pants, her face flushed and eyes _wild-_

“Rey, what’s going on?” And it was as if Poe were a different person then, the carefree man Hux knew transformed into something serious, somber with the dawning realization that something was not _right_.

His hand slipped from Hux's grip.

“I’m so sorry, I wanted to reach you first, before you got to the base.” Hux saw how Rey’s body coiled tight, tension manifesting in the heaviness of her Force, weighted in a way that made Hux wonder if the danger she came to warn them of didn’t hunt her too.

“It’s the New Republic. They arrived yesterday. They’re-” She paused and made a sound that was part sigh and part growl - frustration, raw with _power_ \- “They’re taking over the whole operation. They want-” And this time her eyes darted to Hux, and neither could look away as he felt the punch of her Force, wicked with a darkness that was so much like Ren. Hux was weightless with it, completely taken, overwhelmed in a way that left him numb, “They want you, Hux, and Ben. They want you. I came to warn you.”

Her pain made so much sense, then. As the weight of her words slammed home, Hux saw in her a reflection of himself, of Poe - a desperate aching powerlessness that in this, even the Force could not save her. Hux couldn’t think, he could barely see. The weightless sensation decayed into a vertigo, gravity giving way, depressurizing into a vacuum of thought and feeling and sensation. Hux felt himself suspended there, absent and empty. Alone.

So this was how fate would play her hand.

“What do you mean they _want_ him?” Poe’s voice came from a distance, echoing over a vast gulf. Hux thought he sounded _angry,_ but it was panic that festered beneath his broken words. “Leia said they weren’t interested in him, what _changed_?”

“The Academy, all those _children_. The word got out, there’s been a public outcry. They’re not telling us much and Leia is _furious_.” Rey’s eyes finally broke from Hux and slipped back to Poe, she stood her ground, feet planted, as if the two of them were warriors preparing for a battle they knew they couldn’t walk away from. “I have a ship for you. It’s readied on the western landing field. It’s got a jump drive. I can cover your escape, but you have to leave now, we don’t have-”

_Leave?_

“ _No_.” The word tore from Hux, barked before Poe could bargain his own life away for Hux’s safety - before he could bargain away the safety of the _Order_.

Hux could not _leave._

And it was curious, how in the face of this, the fear that had voraciously consumed him gave way so easily to that familiar cold detachment of command. “Do the terms stand? Are they arresting my crew?”

A brief, pregnant pause, as both Poe and Rey turned to him. Eyes narrowed, as if she couldn’t understand the words Hux spoke, Rey shook her head. “No. The terms stand. It’s only you, and Ben. They only want you two.”

He nodded, curt, affirming what he suspected. And it wasn’t a surprise. In fact, it was the very fate he had carved into his lonesome daydreams, all that time ago, when the tag of traitor had left him cold and shivering in the prison cell of his thoughts.

“ _Armitage_ -”

“Good. I have work to finish.” He sounded stronger than he felt, nearly faltered when he looked at Poe and saw in his eyes a broken plea, a refusal to understand, reluctant and anguished and terrified. And something else, something Hux refused to name. His voice didn't break as he said, “I have to finish this, Poe. I have to. I won’t abandon my men.” But his heart nearly did.

“No.” Poe breathed as he shook his head, dark eyes searching his as his hands reached out and found Hux’s. It was Poe’s hands that shook, in this. “You don’t have to do this yourself. Just tell Rey what to do. She can reach the Order for you, it doesn’t have to be _you_ -”

“Don’t be foolish, Dameron, of course it has to be me.” Hux’s voice was soft, his smile sad, and he knew Poe understood. He let Poe hold his hands, even as Rey watched on, even as the exposure of their closeness left him raw. Hux let Poe have this, this little part of himself that he had left to give. “I have to do this. You know it has to be me.”

The space between them swelled with unspoken emotion. Poe looked on the verge of a break down, eyes glassy, face pale, hands fisted tight around his- so tight it almost _hurt_. And Hux knew, he _knew_ Poe would throw everything away for him, everything he’d spent his life building, spent his life _fighting_ for. The knowledge nearly brought Hux to his knees.

Hux could not stop fate. But Poe would try. And Hux wondered if Poe would survive this. The knight in shining armor, finally cut down by something as tragic as _love._

_I love him._

Hux startled. Turned the words over, considering, examining - acknowledging.

He _loved_ Poe Dameron.

And it was strange, how peace eased it's way into his pounding heart, how calm suffused his racing thoughts. He _loved_ Poe Dameron, and Poe Dameron loved _him_. And where he should have found himself reeling with shock, sick with weakness, Hux found nothing but _strength_.

“Do you trust me?” He asked, as the tears finally pushed free to fall down Poe’s cheeks. Hux squeezed his hands, brought them closer, smoothed his thumbs over his knuckles. And Poe nodded his head, a single dip of his chin, but it was all the affirmation Hux needed.

He loved Poe Dameron, and if Poe could not protect _him_ from whatever fate befell them, maybe Hux could protect _Poe._

-

Of all the battles Poe had fought, this was the first time fear found its way into his heart.

Poe was a fighter. In the most basic sense, he was a soldier. First for the New Republic, and now for the Resistance. But he was also an idealist, and it was the emptiness he felt when fighting for the New Republic’s political agenda that had driven him to the Resistance - to Leia. His disillusionment with the New Republic had never settled into animosity as he’d seen with some of his fellow veterans. Poe retired from the navy on good terms, maintained those good terms in the years since. Had played poster boy for recruitment long after his contract expired. He held no qualms with the New Republic government, even as he acknowledged their ill-placed pacifism, their willingness to turn a blind eye to the struggling Outer Rim worlds that looked to galactic leadership to protect them, to support them, to _help_ them.

Poe was a fighter, and he was an idealist, and he _helped_ people. It’s who he was, who he would always be. Maybe it should have gotten him killed, long ago. Instead, Poe had struck through life skinning his teeth on the knife’s edge of luck, fighting for a moral agenda that revolved around protecting those who could not protect themselves. Leia had taught him that the Resistance did not just offer hope, they embodied it, and Poe had a responsibility to himself and the people he fought on behalf of to never give up on that hope.

But of all the battles Poe had fought, this was the first time he felt hope slip from his heart.

The base appeared calm as Poe followed Rey into the hangar bay. Still, he searched every face, every uniform, attempting to identify friend from foe, seeking some telltale sign of the Senators or their entourage - of _danger_. The phantom presence of the New Republic hung over him, eyes watching from afar, a predator prowling unseen beyond the fold of the familiar. He could feel it lurking, but there was nothing tangible for him to reach out and say, _There, that_ _’s the danger, that’s who I need to be wary of_. Instead, Poe chased after a ghost while shooting blanks into the dark, the luck he had lived by spent short when he needed it most.

Still, Poe’s head space was consumed with a frenzy of action and inaction, plans wrought as quickly as they were tossed aside - a frantic searching for a solution he knew was out of his reach. Did everyone on the base feel it too? Did they understand the threat the New Republic represented? Not just towards the First Order, but towards the Resistance? Leia had always operated by her own rules, fielding New Republic dissent and ensuring the Resistance was beholden to no one but themselves, not bogged down by the slow machinations of a political agenda. Now, that same government had stepped in to assert an authority they had no right to, laying claim to the victory of a war they had refused to fight.

Poe had fought that war. And he had won. And now they sought to steal his spoils?

Armitage was a ghostly presence beside him, veiled in silence, gaze turned inward. Poe wondered what was going through his head, wanted to ask, wanted to offer him _hope,_ but he found he could not bring himself to lie. They had not spoken for the rest of the ride back. But Poe had felt the way Armitage had clung to him, grip stiff and clutching, fingers tangled into the fabric of Poe’s shirt. Poe had blamed the wind for his tears.

Rose met them with a pair of protocol droids, her attention on Rey as she directed the droids to assist stowing their speeders. Poe heard bits of the conversation over the commotion, "What do you mean you mean there's a ship hot on the landing field?" And, higher pitched, slightly panicked, "You did _what_ now? " But Poe focused on Armitage, mouth opening to say something - anything - but then he saw how his eyes settled on a point at the far end of the hangar, saw how the whites edged the gray green of his pupils in the way Poe recognized as fear. Poe’s throat closed as he whipped around.

And found only Leia striding across the hangar towards them.

“Fools, all of you.” She sighed as she waved away Rey’s empty apology and laid her penetrating gaze straight into Poe. There was no doubt she knew of him and Armitage. Poe had never been very good at hiding things from Leia, had in fact openly broadcast himself to her, or so Leia had told him long ago. But even as her Force harried at his edges, it was the small sad smile on her face that was more understanding than any words she might speak. “And here I thought at least one of you would have a sense of self-preservation.”

It was Armitage who spoke to their defense. “I can’t leave when I know how to reach the Order.” That, at least, dawned understanding in Leia’s eyes.

“I knew you would figure it out.” Leia’s voice was _proud,_ and Poe wondered when this softness had developed. When was it that Leia had taken Armitage under her wing? Armitage, who had tucked himself behind Poe, as if he were a shield from some unknown threat - from _Leia_ \- and Poe realized he had no idea.

But Leia saw through it, and the pleased look on her face shook free a _hope_ that nearly brought him to tears for the second time that morning.

“Come with me. Quickly. All of you.”

Leia escorted them through the hangar bay, turning away the wandering eyes of Resistance and First Order alike in a gratuitous wielding of the Force Poe had never seen from her before. She led them into a service hallway, one of the many that connected the upper base to the underground bunkers. Poe had discovered this particular entrance when they had first moved into the base, had walked it once himself, had given the order to lock it down as it didn’t connect to anything useful. Now, as they fled through the base unhindered, he was more thankful than ever for that decision. Windowless and dark, the cold florescent of the intermittent emergency running lights guided their way down a series of empty stairwells and utility access shafts, the service hallway depositing them into a corridor that connected to a network of wide open storage warehouses.

Leia and Rose led the way, while Rey took up the rear. Armitage shadowed him. The cool light turned his features sallow, the shadows settling into the sharp planes of his face in a way that reminded Poe of those early holos he’d seen of _General Hux_ , the ones that had come through their spy network all those years ago. Order propaganda had always painted Armitage in warm reds and golds, a healthy commanding contrast to the black and gray of the rest of the Order schema. The holos had felt real in a way the posters never did, revealing a haunted man who, Poe had thought at the time, was as empty of heart as his eyes were empty of light.

That would be how the New Republic still saw Armitage. That would be the man they expected to find, when the arrest came. Would they see the difference? Would they see the person beneath the propaganda? Or would they only see Starkiller? Would they only see the ghosts of billions in the shadows he cast.

“Armitage.” Poe slowed his pace, fell into step beside him, hand reaching to touch his wrist - light, questing. Armitage looked at him, eyes hooded under a drawn down brow, mouth pressed into a line. Just like those old holos, he looked cold and emotionless, sickly in a way that Poe felt reflected in himself. He swallowed, saliva suddenly thick, his mouth too _dry_ -

Armitage took his hand, slipped their fingers together and _squeezed._ It was brief, barely a moment's touch, and Poe ached. Poe knew Armitage had to be breaking apart on the inside, didn’t know how he was able to hide his emotions so well - not when Poe had spent the last two days watching all the layers of him peel away.

“Are you always this frightful under pressure?” Armitage dropped his voice, the words a grim tease, easing a broken sound out of Poe. “Honestly, Dameron, it’s as if you’re the one facing execution.”

 _Execution._ The ice down his spine left him gasping. “I won’t let them.” The words spilled from Poe before he could stop them, the emptiness of them echoing hollow. Still, Poe refused to take them back. “We’ll figure this out. I _promise_ , Armitage.”

“No one is getting executed.” Leia’s voice cut through the tension, her eyes heavy on Poe when he looked to where she had paused in front of a closed bay door. Rose was beside her at the electronic lock, tapping a passcode into the control board. “At least, not yet. In here, come on. Before one of their droids finds us.” The bay door groaned open, dust spilling out of the accordion folds as the metal slowly drew upwards.

The frown on Rey’s face as she passed them left Poe wondering if Leia wasn’t just playing at politics, but he knew the woman better than that - if Armitage’s life were in immediate danger he trusted her to not smooth over the truth.

Beyond the bay door sprawled a wide open warehouse. Nearly as large as the active hangar above ground, the space reached several stories high, the ceiling lost to the darkness, the unseen metal beams holding the structure aloft casting strange shadows across a _ship_. Poe stared, the realization dawning on him that this wasn’t a warehouse but an underground hangar bay. The ship was a small deep space cruiser, lightspeed capable but with a weapons system that left enough to be desired - more of a luxury ship than a fighter.

It wasn't much, but it wasn't meant to be, because it was a _getaway ship_.

Shocked, Poe looked to Rey, then Leia - couldn't decide who he wanted to kiss more. “When did you do this?”

“The day you left. When we found out the New Republic were on their way we knew we’d needed to do some planning.” Leia gestured at the ship. “It’s not much, but it will do if someone has to make a quick escape. Unlike leaving a transport hot on the landing field for anyone to see.”

Rey flushed, but stood her ground, “I made sure no one saw, and it’s not like they can track it through hyperspace.”

“Unless they’ve gotten a hold of Order tech we haven’t been able to recover.” Rose quipped.

“It wasn’t tech, it was math.” When Poe looked at Armitage even he appeared surprised by his words, his eyes darting from him to Leia then up at the ceiling. The tips of his ears were as red as his hair, “My math.”

The quiet of the room was awkward, and for the first time in what felt like forever Poe nearly laughed. Instead, it was Leia who chuckled, “Credit where credit is due, I suppose.”

Armitage’s frown cut deep, pink now across his nose, hands fisted at his sides. He looked back to Leia, huffing out a sigh. “Are you going to tell us what’s going on, then?” He sounded angry, looked frustrated, but Poe was grateful to see any emotion at all. The haunted facade of before had left Poe feeling far more alone than reassured. Somehow, Armitage’s anger and frustration was a comfort.

“First, despite what Rey might believe, there have been no official talks of arrests or executions, as of yet.” Leia leveled a _look_ at Rey that Poe was all too familiar with, and he couldn’t help the little grin that pulled at his mouth as Rey knowingly met his eyes. “Five New Republic Senators arrived at our base approximately twenty four standard hours ago. Their arrival was precluded by a transmission that was received only several hours before their actual ship. Their agenda, as they’ve told me, is to assist with our efforts. I think we all know politics are never that simple, though.”

The sigh that left Leia then was long, the wariness she felt slipping through, just a little. But it was enough for Poe to see the worn edges of age appear on her, the glamour of youth falling away to reveal the woman who had survived _three_ different Republic regimes.

“They’re holding an inquest regarding what befell the Academy. Somehow the details were leaked outside official channels and the Senate has been dealing with the public who is, understandably, looking for an explanation. It seems the news of the First Order’s child trafficking has finally gained the attention we’ve been trying to give it for years.” And that was the truth, wasn’t it? The Resistance had been relaying reports from the Outer Rim for nearly a decade, the ones that spoke of orphanages emptied over night, the slave traders who turned a profit off First Order credits, whole mining colonies raided of not just their ore but their children too.

"Those _children-"_ Armitage cut himself off, looked away again, face flickering with emotion before he wiped it clean, mouth pressing closed over unspoken words, tongue held only because, in this, he was out numbered. Their eyes met and for a moment Poe was confronted with a man he had almost forgotten, and it brought back all the memories and feelings of a time not so long past, when Armitage was Hux and they were on opposite sides of a galaxy wide war. It was easy to forget, now, how different they once were - how unaligned their goals had been...how quickly everything had changed. Could it change just as quickly again?

“And with it, the pain over the destruction of the Hosnian system has regained public attention. And we all know who was the face of that tragedy.” Leia turned to Armitage then, and Poe watched as she caught and held his gaze. “They will be interviewing you regarding the Academy and the Hosnian Cataclysm, and it would be naive for us to not assume they are not also looking for someone to hold accountable. Your family history with the Academy and the propaganda surrounding Starkiller Base have served you no favors. You are their target, Hux. I do believe you are facing arrest.”

Armitage’s chin dropped, mouth twisted in a silent snarl. “And Ren, what of his responsibility. We were co-commanders of Starkiller Base. And I _saved_ children, I believe _his_ history involves murdering them.”

“ _Ben_ is not immune from their attention either. In fact, he interviewed with the Senators yesterday for over five hours.” Leia’s voice brokered no sympathy, for Armitage or her son. “Believe it or not, Hux, I am on your side. I do not believe the Senate will serve justice by placing the blame of the whole First Order at your feet. But they are a democratic republic, and if the public calls for your arrest and execution then you best prepare yourself, or run. Because right now, you still have that option. You could board this ship behind me and disappear into the Unknown Regions, and that would be the end of all this.”

The air left Poe’s lungs, the truth of Leia’s words spurring him towards the need for action. Poe was prepared, he had been ready to leave the moment Rey met them in the field. But Armitage was looking at Leia with that same cold expression he’d seen in the hallway, and Poe realized the mask for what it was. Like a creature trapped, the panicked turmoil Poe had mistaken for anger and frustration now spilled through the cracks of detached calm Hux had donned, his eyes wild under his furrowed brow. But his words were the same as those spoken before, the same denial of his own opportunity to flee - to _live_.

“I won’t leave my crew behind. I won’t leave the rest of the Order to die hiding from those who hunt them.”

The quiet that fell over the room was heavy with the morbidity of understanding, and Leia sighed, weary again, but as resolved as Armitage.

“And hopefully the Senate will see that for what it is, will see it how I do.” The words Leia said next were kind, but the way her voice hammered them into sound was far more harsh, as if she knew she needed to convince not just Armitage, or the Senate, but the whole of the universe, “You’re a good man Hux, and somehow I had not expected that. You’ve also proved me wrong, and that’s not something many can claim.”

Whether it was the force of her words or the more tangible touch of her mind against his, Armitage’s mask bled away. He turned his face away from Leia, his body following, arms finally coming up to cross over his chest, mouth splitting from a frown to a grimace as he came undone. Suddenly, Armitage looked so small. Like a broken thing put back together wrong, held together by nothing but the grip of his own arms around himself.

Poe felt himself break with him.

Stepping forward, heedless of Rey or Rose or Leia’s eyes on them, Poe pulled Armitage into an embrace. He was shaking, as if Leia’s words had stripped him raw, exposed him to the harsh elements of his own heart. That simple measure of kindness, her acknowledgment of what, Poe knew, was something incredibly important, yet incredibly private for Armitage, had released a dam of emotion he had been harboring for weeks. It tipped him over the edge, the muster of his strength spent in the span of a sentence, surrendered at the feet of his former enemies.

Poe smoothed his hand down his back, trailed his fingers through his hair, pressed his face to Armitage’s cheek and listened to the shuddering of his breath.

The others gave them the mercy of this quiet moment alone, voices softened as they turned away.

“It’s okay, you’re okay.” Poe murmured as Armitage’s arms slipped around his waist, returning his hold. There was something to this, a new plateau they had reached, where Armitage would acknowledge this thing between them before those closest to Poe. It sang inside him, alighting him with a fire, the burning thing inside him that drove Poe to charge head first into every battle he’d ever undertaken.

Poe would not let Armitage go without a fight. Because Poe was a fighter. It’s who he was, and of all the battles he had fought, this might be the first time he fought to protect something for himself.

-

The weft of his uniform was rougher than Hux remembered, as his hand smoothed over the folded material.

It had been laundered in his absence, left in a sack inside the door along with Poe’s clothing. That had felt as strange as it looked, when he’d sorted through the bag to find their belongings mixed together, a visceral merging of their lives, as intimate as it was mundane. But now as he placed the jacket into his trunk, he was struck by how much more strange _this_ felt - bare of the uniform that had once brought him such strength, his armor stripped of him when he needed it most.

 _You can_ _’t wear your First Order uniform anymore. It’s a symbol, and they will be looking to frame you as the General you were, rather than the defector you need to show them you are._

He touched his fingers to the General stripes on the cuff, the fine silvery white thread worn in the places where it had rubbed against his hip during all those years spent walking the halls of the Finalizer. He’d been so proud the day this uniform had been delivered to his new quarters aboard _his_ ship. She had just been set into orbit, fresh from the Kuat drive yards, and they were to take their maiden voyages together; _General_ Hux and his new commission, setting out on a journey that, at the time, Hux had believed would end so much differently.

 _This is all about optics, Hux. Their droids are everywhere, watching, recording. They say it_ _’s for a holo program they’re producing to sway sympathy to our cause, but we know better, don’t we?_

Hux indeed knew better. Surveillance was a tactic well utilized by the Order. Men behaved differently when they knew their actions were watched. But unlike the New Republic, the Order was honest with its intentions. This was an active subversion of the Resistance itself, whose years had been spent hiding from not just the Order, but from the galaxy at large. Their survival had been dependent upon it. Now they were under the watchful eye of their own people, exposed and unprotected, the wilds of Ajan Kloss broadcast to the greater galaxy, where anyone with half a mind could narrow down the likely prospects of their location.

The weight of that weakness was borne not by the New Republic, but by the people who called this place home. Walking the halls of the base again, just that short trek to his and Poe’s quarters, he had already seen it. Whispers where before there were laughs, people reserved where they were once rowdy, cold where they were once familiar.

Curiously, the camaraderie between his crew and the Resistance had not deteriorated - appeared bolstered, judging by the way they walked the halls together, brought closer by a common threat.

 _They_ _’re aware of your work to reach what is left of the Order and I don’t believe they will make an arrest until that work is complete. But time is something your people don’t have the luxury of, and I doubt I can buy you anymore than I already have._

Tomorrow morning he would meet Organa and Tico at the uplink transport. Tico would assist him with managing the network connection so he could focus on the slicing required to push the data payload through. He didn’t anticipate any issues. In truth, he expected everything to go fairly smoothly. And though Organa did not think his arrest would come until after the Order had time to respond to his message - whether they would give him the opportunity to perform the actual negotiations - no one could say for sure.

The difficult task ahead would be organizing any incoming rescue efforts. The Finalizer had been short eighty percent of its crew when it reached Ajan Kloss. He could not say the same of the other ships. The uncomfortable admission was that he needed not just the Resistance, but the help of the New Republic. And if that meant he had to play their game to keep his people safe...

Hux knew what that mean, he'd spent his life playing other men's games.

 _You are not to walk the base alone. One of us, either myself or Poe, Rey, Rose or hell, even Finn, I don't care who, but someone will always need to be with you. Of all the Senators, you are not to speak alone with Fineas Ofant. Those are his droids you will see patrolling. He is the New Republic_ _’s Director or New Media, and he owns over half of the holo-news cycles. He lost his family to the Hosnian cataclysm, and despite what he may otherwise allude, he is out for your head, Hux._

Organa had not needed to drive that point any deeper. There had been a time when Hux might have willingly given himself to Fineas Ofant, turned his life over and accepted a fate he had once actively sought. Now, he was no longer sure what he deserved. All he knew was what he _wanted_.

Poe watched him from where he leaned against the threshold of Hux’s room. His dark eyes hooded, struggling against the slide inward. Hux wanted to go to him, wanted to push into his chest and feel his warm arms come around him and seek the comfort he knew he’d find there, but he had already taken enough from Poe. When presented with the opportunity to save his own life or save the Order, Hux had chosen the Order.

Despite whatever Hux _wanted_ , he had made his choice, and it had not been Poe Dameron.

“Want me to send a droid for some food? We still have some time before your interview.” Poe’s voice sounded casual, normal, but Hux could hear the struggle for control.

Poe had cried when they first arrived at their quarters. Had hid himself in the fresher where he didn’t think Hux could hear over the spray of the shower. But Hux had leaned against the locked door, had heard the sound through the durasteel, had pressed his forehead to the cool metal and closed his eyes against his own tears.

 _I love him_. And the knowledge made everything all the more difficult to bear.

The aching need he felt for Poe consumed him, and as much as Hux wanted to be assured he was making the right choice, he couldn’t help but feel that he was walking the wrong path diverged. What if his message didn’t reach anyone? What if he was too late? What if those left of his generation had already fallen to his father’s ghosts? What if Hux was giving up everything he had, _could have_ , for some slippery shadow of _hope._

Hux knew now, why so many men spent their lives unloved. Love was a far crueler mistress than even fate. Where fate felt inevitable, love cut from the shadows without warning, giving as quickly and violently as it took.

Poe dressed him. Unlike that first time, so many weeks ago, there were no smiles, no teases, no jokes. He took his time, rolling Hux’s shirt sleeves with the delicate precision of a pilot, loosening the top two buttons so his collar fell open in casual disregard - as if it mattered, as if any of this would make a _difference_. The clothing was worn, not new, the fit strange, the muted colors too bold. A costume donned to ill-effect, Hux couldn't help but think. Over-designed, the results were comical, not convincing - a work of satire, all drama lost. A character Hux was supposed to play in the holo that was his life.

In the fresher mirror Hux pushed his hair into a different part, frowned, and pushed it back. He didn’t look different, he just looked _wrong_ , and he was certain he would fool no one.

One of the droids Organa warned them of arrived at their door to escort Hux to his interview - his _interrogation_ \- and what time he had left felt all the shorter for it. He could see the way the lens focused on his face, recognized the mirrored facsimile of an optic nerve which begot the droids high grade visual components. It was recording him. The way he walked, the way he spoke. So Hux didn’t speak, and he kept pace beside Poe, sometimes so close that their arms brushed. He thought maybe they shouldn’t allow themselves to be recorded like this, together, but every time he drifted away Poe closed the distance again.

The hallway was absent of the hustle of people Hux was used to, and as they walked their footfalls echoed off the cement walls. The part of the base the droid had led them to was not somewhere Hux had been before. But he was reminded of his walks down the long corridors of the Supremacy, Snoke’s throne room but twenty more paces off, twenty more seconds for Hux to quiet his mind and prepare his body, twenty more breaths before the air would be choked from his lungs, punched from his gut.

Here, he had twenty more beats left of his heart, before it would be ripped from his chest, dashed against the feats of his past.

When the droid stopped in front of a door that looked like any other door on the base, Hux knew it was not. Three knocks and then the droid stepped back, watching Hux with that artificial focus. Poe was beside him still, drawn up somehow taller than his height allowed, face set with a strength Hux was unsure if he actually felt. Their eyes met as they waited, and Hux wondered if this was also part of the game, this slow undoing of time that took with it all the mental preparations he had managed together.

He didn’t jump when the door slid open. He thought maybe that was a good sign.

“General Armitage Hux of the First Order?” The aide that greeted them was a small woman, no older than he or Poe, and her attitude was affable. Hux glimpsed beyond her a banquet table set with five chairs, three filled, two empty, but all five Senators there, chatting amongst themselves with a congenial grace, as if this was just another day at the office surrounded by friends.

As is the very life of a man wouldn’t be decided over the span of the next several hours.

“ _Former_ General Armitage Hux of the First Order.” He corrected, but the aide just shrugged, non-plussed.

“Come in, please.” She gestured ahead as she stepped aside, attention turning to Poe before he could follow Hux inside. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait out here, Mr. Dameron. The interview is considered confidential.”

“ _General_ Dameron.” Poe corrected and this time the aide smiled, blushed a little, eyes wandering Poe as if he weren’t a person but a poster, fit only for public consumption. Their eyes met again and Poe looked flustered, brought to task by his own reputation, the lack of respect landing in a way Hux suspected Poe had become so accustomed to that he never recognized it for what it was. “Meet me right here when you’re through. I’ll be waiting.” His voice was hard, and the aide drew back to consider them.

“I will, if I can.” Hux’s codepad was tucked into his pocket, _Force_ opened to his player profile. He had set all three of his cards to the dead star resource, more a symbol than anything, but one Mitaka and Phasma would understand. A warning of danger of the worst kind.

“Don’t make me come find you.” It sounded like a threat, though Hux recognized the tease in Poe’s voice. The aide’s eyebrows raised in curiosity, in misunderstanding, eyes searching Hux for a pair of cuffs, or an ankle tracker, as if he were actually the prisoner they were told he was not. Little did she know any threat was directed at the people behind her, not him.

He didn’t look back when he entered the room, didn’t want his last memory of Poe to be his face disappearing behind a closed door.

There was a single lonesome folding chair set in the middle of the floor. Wordlessly, the aide directed him to sit.

The air of the room may as well have been sucked into the vacuum of space, for all the silence that pervaded his presence, for all the breath he could not find. The Senators had grown quiet, conversations cut short as they turned their attention to him, as if he were some strange spectacle to behold. _Here, now, you will see the Starkiller, a man who devised the galaxy_ _’s greatest horror, a planet turned machine, a star turned super weapon. At his feet lay the lives of billions, but now he wants his freedom. Is that really what he deserves?_ Hux sat down in the chair if only because he wasn’t sure how much longer he could stand.

He knew, logically, that he had faced far greater personal threats than the five people before him. Snoke’s power spanned distances well beyond the hall of his throne room aboard the Supremacy, wielded against Hux from light years away. And he had borne the punishments of his failures with a sneer and a scowl, had brought himself to his own knees to grovel for forgiveness enough times that he had stopped feeling the shame of it.

Hux had faced down Kylo Ren’s tyrannical tantrums, accepting the abuse it sowed, if only because the future of the First Order depended upon his strength of dedication to their cause. Depended on his ability to stand up to a man who would throw his crew to the ashes of a memory long dead, if it meant he could ascend to a greater power with the Force.

And he had cowered under the hand of his own father, learning from him that a man’s true strength wasn’t in his ability to take a hit, but his ability to keep going despite them.

Yet somehow, in this room, Hux felt all those past lessons learned and strategies from games played abandon him. Instead, he sat in his chair, and he cast his eyes to his lap, and he thought about Poe. Poe’s touch and Poe’s words, his laugh and his warmth. And Hux found his strength not in what he had survived, but in the love he had been given.

And if here was where his fate was to be decided, where his freedom was to be abjured in favor of a death sentence, Hux wondered if he had been right to ensconce his feelings for Poe away. If Hux, a person who had never known love, let alone the kind which Poe had for him, could find strength in that love…Hux could only imagine what strength Poe, a person who sought and sowed love with the fury of a storm, could find in that love.

_I love him._

Hux wished, suddenly, that he had told Poe.

“General Armitage Hux of the First Order, I dare say it’s an honor.” The man who spoke was tall, as tall as Hux, maybe as tall as Ren. His hair was shorn short but not cropped, gray at the temple and shot through yet more. His strong jawed face bore a smile that looked genuine, but Hux knew men like this, had been dealing with them all his life. This was Fineas Ofant, the man Organa had warned him of, the man who would see him dead.

Hux said nothing as the Senators took their time finding their seats, the din of conversation ebbing into the casual chatter from before. The aide passed out datapads with what, Hux assumed, were files on him - his past exploits and perhaps current work with the Resistance. Three droids walked the room, one settling beside the banquet table with its lens focused on his face, the other two switching between the Senators and himself. Hux did not look into the lens focused on him, instead he kept his eyes on the Senators, on his lap.

Hux wondered, suddenly, how Ren had felt sitting here under the scrutiny of the Senate. Had he lost his temper? Had he screamed and yelled? Had he tossed these men and women and sentient beings around like dolls to be played with? He doubted it, yet his interview had lasted hours. So what had Ren spoke of for so long? His history with Snoke? His history with _him?_ Had he placed the blame on Hux, the fanatical son of a fanatical father, who represented everything the First Order had been and might have become?

“You understand why you’re here, correct? Or did Princess Organa not get the chance to speak with you first?” The woman who spoke was a human, blonde and of undiscerning age. Younger, certainly, than he expected for a Senator, but then the same could be said of him as a General at age thirty-five. She had not shared her name.

And yes, Organa _had_ spoken with him, but in secret. In a place deep underground protected from the monolithic eye of these people and their droids, “I am here to be interviewed regarding the fate of the First Order’s Academy.”

“Not exactly.” The woman’s attention was on her datapad, eyes roaming a screen he could not see, “Given your family’s history with the Academy we feel we already have your perspective on those events, General.”

“Former General.” Like the aide, the woman looked up at him, non-plussed. Someone snickered but Hux could not identify who.

“It seems your crew would disagree. We’ve already interviewed several who most certainly refer to you as their General.”

“A well-defined chain of command provides a sense of stability within a military. It does not surprise me that they’ve retained those constructs under their circumstances.”

“ _Comfort_.” The word sounded wrong, when Ofant said it, twisted and cruel. “You’re saying you provide them comfort.”

“Stability.” Hux met Ofant’s eyes, turned away. “I also would not be surprised if most do not understand they are no longer beholden to the Order, but political refugees.”

“Political refugees? Is that what Princess Organa calls them?”

“She calls them friends.”

The woman smiled, but it was tight. “Well, for your _former_ crew to be considered political refugees they would need to be assigned that status by the Senate of the New Republic, and I don’t believe we have officially decided what they will be considered.”

Hux’s blood went cold.

“I was under the impression that those terms had already been negotiated.” Was the woman bluffing? Was she trying to worry away at his defenses? Sow doubt of his position, of the security of his people? Certainly she knew that this _threat_ , because that’s what it was, would raise his hackles. Was she trying to harrow him further onto the defensive, catch him off-guard and expose him as nothing more than an Order loyalist playing at defector? Was she _right_?

“They are certainly under the jurisdiction of the New Republic, but an official declaration as political refugees would absolve them of their responsibility in past conflicts. We are open to the idea but are not quite ready to take that step. The Senate is under public pressure at the moment, and we’re here to not only assist Princess Organa with the surrender of the Order, but see to it that greater justice is served for the sake of the New Republic and the whole galaxy.”

“What do you want from me.” He knew what they wanted, he just needed to hear them say it. For all the games Hux had played, he already found himself exhausted of this one.

“Only your cooperation, General. I will be up front, you are, essentially the face of the First Order. And I don’t presume that this comes as a surprise to you. In fact, it seems to be by _your_ design.” And that was, certainly, the truth. While there had never been a light at the end of this tunnel, Hux had not felt quite so in the dark up until now. “While I might respect your recent efforts to rectify what wrongs your organization has inflicted upon the galaxy, it will never be enough to justify the billions of lives you took from us. Innocent lives. Men and women and children and creatures whose only crime was existing within a system you sought to make a message out of. The New Republic was born of war, and we understand the collateral nature of innocent casualties, but you destroyed an _entire system._ And, if our intel serves us, you were not just the face of the Hosnian Cataclysm, but the chief officer that oversaw the planning and engineering of Starkiller Base. Are we wrong?"

No, they were _not_ wrong. “That is correct.”

And it was as much a confession as much as it was a death sentence, even as the Senators bent together, whispers lost to a distance that felt far more vast than the space of the room.

They moved apart, eventually, silent again as they watched him. Maybe they were waiting for more - a justification, an excuse. An apology? Hux had no excuses to give, no justification that would make sense, and knew an apology would only be insulting. No, Hux knew what they wanted from him, and it was not empty words.

Fineas Ofant was the first to break the silence. “Well that seems to cover most everything we needed to discuss.”

Hux drew to attention, felt his face slacken for just a fraction, barely at all, but enough that Ofant smiled at him, dark and _knowing_. And Hux couldn’t control himself when he snapped, “My crew fled the Order to survive political in-fighting and I do not wish for them to suffer yet more. They have done nothing but cooperate with the Resistance and consent to their rules. They have worked alongside them, ate alongside them, slept alongside them, and have begun to rebuild their lives alongside them. There are others out there who would accept the same opportunity. Surely the New Republic would welcome an end to the First Order through peace rather than more war?”

Silence permeated the room again, broken only by the sound of his own breath. Hux was shaking, his chest tight with words he wanted to scream, the ones that would tell these kriffing bastards that they were the reason why the wounds of the Empire never healed, them and their fucking riotous indignation for _justice_. What did they want from him? What did they want him to say? Hux had given up _everything -_ his information, his position, his contacts, his uniform, his _ship_ , and the whole of his command. What else was left?

He knew what was left, and not so long ago, he had been prepared to give that up too.

So why was it so _hard,_ now?

_I love him._

Hux had promised himself he would protect Poe, now Hux realized that meant he must protect himself.

But to protect himself, he would have to betray the Order. And he couldn’t - not again, not like _this_.

“So please, do not sit there and think to mock me. There is no wool over my head. You need someone to be publicly held accountable, and I am the obvious option. If it means my crew and any other member of the First Order who defects will be given political asylum and allowed refugee status, then I will walk to the gallows myself. What I will not abide is this petty manipulation, not when the lives of so many depend on my advocation for their safety.”

If his last move in this game of life was to surrender himself on a silvered platter then he would, if it meant his crew, the _Order,_ could walk free.

 _I_ _’m so sorry, Poe._

“We understand that tomorrow you will be contacting the rest of the Order with an offer to assist with further defections. If you’re able to reach them with success, we will negotiate refugee status for your crew and those that come forward. If we can put an end to the First Order, then that is certainly in the New Republic’s best interest.” The woman looked to her fellows, noted their nods of affirmation while he noted Fineas Ofant’s open grin, and then she met Hux’s eyes one last time. “I believe we are done here, General Hux.”

-

“It’s _Ben,_ Ben _Solo._ _”_

“So the name Kylo Ren-”

“Kylo Ren is dead.”

“Right.” A beat, someone snickered, it wasn’t obvious who. “Ben, do you know why you are here today?”

“Do you know why _you_ _’re_ here?”

“We’re here to provide aid to your mother, and to serve justice on behalf of the New Republic-”

Ben laughed, head thrown back. “No, you’re not.”

The Senators leaned in close, words too soft for the recording to pick up.

“Ben, we’d like to talk with you about the events that occurred around the construction and subsequent firing of Starkiller Base.”

“You want to talk about _Hux_.”

“Well, we’re certainly interested in the role he played regarding the destruction of the Hosnian system.”

“ _He_ wants him _dead._ ” Ben’s arm lifted to point at Fineas Ofant.

Ofant smiled, said nothing.

“Is it going to be like this the entire time?”

“Maybe we should get Leia-”

A short scuffle, as one of the Senator's datapads slid off the edge of the banquet table as if of its own accord.

“Ben, what do you know of General Hux.”

“Everything.”

“Because you both served as co-commanders for five years-”

“Because I’ve been inside his _head_.”

Silence again, a long one. Leia checked the audio channel on the recording, just to be sure the sound hadn’t cut out.

"I think we should just end this now, we're not getting anywhere."

“Ben, we’re going to need you to cooperate and answer our questions clearly-”

“Then start asking the right questions.”

 _Atta boy._ Leia smirked, indulgent, proud of her _son_.

“What are the right questions?”

“Ask me why Hux threw away his entire life with the Order to stop me. Ask me what his motivations were to rise as quickly through the ranks as he did. Ask me what was it about him that made me hate him so much.”

“You hated him? Why?”

“I hated him because he _cared_.”

“What did he care about?”

“The First Order.”

“Well, of course, the First Order was-"

“No. He cared about the _people_ of the First Order.”

“And you hated him for that?”

“I hated him because he cared, and that made him weak, because it was of the _light_.”

Leia paused the recording, and released a breath she had spent too long holding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise next chapter around will have more time with Poe and Hux talking through this stuff and finding some strength in one another.
> 
> This was the most difficult chapter to write yet - I know y'all love angst but it really takes a toll on me to write. Real life at the moment is pure chaos, but I hope to keep up with a two week update schedule while I can. Also, check out that chapter count...I am pretty positive this will be the last bump :)


	8. System Reboot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe a mild warning if you're like me and are triggered by assholes. Otherwise, just an obscene amount of angst.

Hux stood at the edge of something far greater than himself.

And it was strange, now that he was a dead man walking, how everything he once thought important fell away. There was a rawness left in its wake, an unburdening that exposed more than the core of him or his beliefs. Hux was not sure if he was a good person as Organa claimed, but he knew here, stripped of the construct of his own life and survival, he found peace knowing that his death meant so many others would live.

He’d read once that when a man dies his entire life is relived over the span of a second. Every memory brought to bear, every feeling and emotion, every fear and joy. But instead of a moment Hux had been given days, and his relatively short lifetime of memories had long since been spent. So, Hux was left suspended in an emptiness that would, eventually, be taken from him too. And in that liminal space between life and death, he found his perspective shifting on a fundamental level.

That the people of the Order would live, that felt important.

That those same people would be given the opportunity to finally seed Order values in the greater galaxy felt _more_ important. That what Hux had spent his life pursuing would be achieved through his death…he almost laughed aloud at the irony the New Republic was playing into.

But he kept this thought to himself, for Poe’s sake - Poe, who’s humor had fallen away to reveal a fury Hux would have feared had they still been on opposite sides of a galaxy wide war.

Hux knew Poe’s anger hid a deeper despair. He knew this because the lonesome moments they spent together in their quarters were filled with those now familiar touches, as if Poe thought they could live a whole lifetime in the course of a day. But while Hux expected the physicality of Poe’s affection, what he was not prepared for were that those moments were not spent in a desperate love making, or frantic demanding touches. They were spent with all the small things: soft lips to his forehead, the pressure of fingertips to his wrist, formless words whispered into his hair, stirring a bodily warmth that clung to Hux long after he and Poe had parted. They were things that crawled over his skin and burrowed deep in his cracks, a remapping of his nerve endings that left him wired for Poe in a way that made him ache for so much more, a more Poe refused to allow.

As often as Hux had asked, as much as he had _pleaded_ , when Poe’s tender touches left him shaking, Poe refused to take that last step, as if the act of sex would herald Hux’s end closer. Really, he suspected Poe put it off so they had something to look forward to, crafting what future he could from what time they had left.

And Hux still had not told Poe of his feelings - of his _love_. So he thought maybe he understood Poe, in this. That his admission would seal their destiny, the words a harbinger of a pain that would consume all else, leaving them both wanting for something that would never be theirs to have.

Of all the revelations Hux had experienced since the acceptance of his death, he had yet to understand how Poe fit into the equation of his life. It felt insulting to say that Poe was fate’s form of apology, even if that’s how Hux viewed him. Because that would mean Hux’s presence in Poe’s life was a punishment, and Hux didn’t think Poe deserved to be punished. What Poe deserved was the happiness he had spent his life providing for others.

Hux wanted to be that happiness, wished he’d been given the opportunity.

“I’m going to fix this.” Hux looked up from his codepad when Poe spoke, finding him afire with that fury. It shimmered beneath his glassy surface, awaiting a shattering that might set it free. Hux was curled up against him on his lumpy couch, fully dressed in his Resistance provided clothing, the hem of his muted dark green shirt rucked up where Poe’s fingers circled a pattern into the skin of his hip. Hux wondered idly who these clothes had belonged to, wondered if he too were dead now, his belongings gathered and re-purposed and given to a man who could not be cursed by their previous owner’s ill fortune, not when he was already bound to share it.

Poe’s eyes searched his, the crease in his brow deepening like he could read his thoughts. Hux did his best to soften Poe. He let a small smile tug at his lips, and he smoothed a hand down Poe's thigh. All those small touches he knew Poe savored, all the little things he thought maybe Poe would remember.

Beyond the domed window, Ajan Kloss was waking into morning. The sun barely breached the sky, night still hanging heavy over the distant mountain peaks. In the dim light Poe looked more handsome than Hux could stomach. Dark and brooding and alive with all the simple physicalities of breath and blood and a pounding pulse. Hux took what he was given, harvesting happiness from the dread that threatened to overwhelm them both. Hux had grown good at this, a long time ago. And old habits died hard.

“When I talk to them, I’ll convince them they’re making a mistake.” Poe had been treading these same circles all night and into morning, chasing a solution that was perpetually out of reach. Hux chased Poe's hand, tracing his fingers where they edged the waistband of his pants, enjoying the feel of Poe's skin beneath his bare ungloved palm.

“It was my idea, Poe. You can’t blame them entirely.” A point of contention, if there ever was one. Poe had not been pleased, but at least he had understood.

“They manipulated you. You really think Leia didn’t work out the details of your crew weeks ago?”

Hux had wondered that too - had come to the conclusion that it wouldn't really matter either way, in the end. “It doesn’t seem like they care much about what Organa thinks, or what promises she has made.”

“If not for Leia there would be no New Republic left at all.” Poe snarled, his blunt nails dragging along the skin of Hux’s hip as his fingers curled. Hux shivered. Part of Hux liked seeing Poe like this, probably because it was all for _him,_ but as he crawled his eyes down Poe’s face, taking in the turn of his mouth, the rasp of his voice, he kept his smile to himself. “They _owe_ us, I don’t care what _public pressure_ they’re under. If they want pressure I’ll give them pressure.”

Hux held his breath as he watched Poe burn beside him in a glorious display of possessiveness. For all the anger Poe must feel, there was an undercurrent of control that left Hux curious, a method Poe had of manifesting his feelings into a willpower that explained so much about him and his ability to achieve the impossible.

In any other thing, Hux might have gambled his hope on a man who had made a life out of defying the worst odds. Instead, Hux tempered that willpower, afraid of where it might lead Poe, afraid that if Poe flew too close to his fate that he might get caught in its orbit.

“I’m quite taken with this version of you,” Hux smiled instead. “But I don’t think threats will get you far. Likely it will get you thrown in the brig and I will have to spend my final days bereft of your charming presence.”

“ _Armitage_ ,” Poe breathed, face breaking to reveal not anger, but that other ever abiding emotion: _despair_. Poe's arm slid tighter around him as he pulled Hux closer, as if by sheer strength alone he could hold them together. Hux closed his eyes. “Can you please not _say_ things like that?”

“What, speak of my death?” Hux murmured the words softly as he turned his head into Poe's neck to hide the unevenness of his breath _._

“Joke about it. This is...it's _serious_.”

Hux wanted to point out that Poe himself had a knack for joking about serious things, but, he saw Poe’s request for what it was, and Hux had no desire to draw out Poe’s pain and sour what time they had left together. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Poe.”

When he pressed his fingers to Poe’s cheek he saw all the anger and despair melt away to be replaced with a force of affection Hux could feel mirrored in himself. It breathed through him, bound him to Poe in a synthesis that felt essential. Hux imagined the threads of himself that surely connected to Poe in the same way that life on Ajan Kloss was connected to its atmosphere, the way the planets were connected to their suns, the way life was connected to death.

He couldn't stop himself from kissing Poe, then. It was nothing more than a soft press of his lips, but his trembling revealed more, and the ensuing wetness gave Poe away. And as Poe whispered _you're okay_ over and over again into the curve of his mouth, Hux wondered if the words for for him or for Poe.

They parted ways outside the base. Poe risked running late for his own interview with the Senators to see Hux off to the transport that would take him to the Finalizer’s uplink station where he would meet Organa - where he would finally reach the lost remnants of the First Order.

Poe had embraced him openly before Hux boarded, defiant of anyone who might see, defiant of the artificial gaze of the droid which had been following them since they’d left their quarters behind. It had been waiting, had in fact been sitting outside their door all evening; the shadow of a gaze of a nameless observer, documenting a life of a man already promised to death.

Few others had been awake, and the emptiness of the base allowed the droid to encapsulate an image of them walking alone hand in hand. Hux had thought to pull away but Poe had looked at him with such open and honest _need_ that Hux could only hold his hand tighter. So, as the droid’s sophisticated optics complied an image of them in a moment that should have been intimately private, something for them to keep only for themselves, unobserved and unjudged, Hux decided he would not think about the eyes that would later see the footage. He would ignore the picture it painted of Poe - _traitor, conspirator, Starkiller-fucker -_ because Hux understood now that the character he played in Poe’s story was one that would only ever live on in memory, and Hux wanted to give Poe as many memories as he could, while he still could.

No, Hux hadn’t quite figured out why fate had thrust him and Poe together. And if he could not protect Poe, he had to trust that the memories he left behind would at least be enough to see Poe through to the other side whole.

From the small slotted window at the back of the transport Hux watched Poe disappear behind the foliage of the forest. His arm never lifted in a wave goodbye, his head never turned to observe the droid that lingered beside him. Stoic and unmoving, Poe had stood, until the trees consumed him and Hux felt the sting of the sun settle in his eyes.

-

Poe walked the base alone, bereft in a way that haunted him.

In the absence of Armitage Poe drifted like a ghost, stripped of his spirit and all the stuff inside him that felt like living. Loss had not spoken to him like this since his mother had died, and Poe recognized now what he’d seen in his father all that time ago. As a boy he had worried, had been afraid Kes would follow Shara to wherever she had gone - some non-existent place they called the afterlife. Because when Kes would sit in his chair and focus on a thing that Poe could never see, he thought maybe his mother was still there, but only his father could see her. He had been right, Poe now realized. It _was_ Shara Kes had seen, but not in the flesh, and not as a ghost, but the Shara that lived in his head, in all the memories he kept and held and lived and relived.

Armitage was not dead, not yet, but Poe found himself doing the same. His footfalls echoed off the mostly empty corridors, his steps taking him where he needed to go while his mind went where he wanted to be: back on that mountainside with Armitage asleep in his arms, back in his quarters when Armitage had broke down for the first time, back on the beach when the Finalizer was falling and Armitage had looked so lost and alone. And yet further back - when Armitage was Hux and he had saved Poe’s life while throwing away his own, as if it didn’t matter, as if it had never mattered.

Armitage had come to terms with his own death with an accedence Poe could not completely understand. There was a disconnection in how he had spoken of himself all morning, as if he had already left the world behind. Poe wondered if his career with the First Order had been constantly spent in a similar state, where the unfortunate reality of living was a gamble made everyday. Maybe the Resistance had offered Armitage something notably greater than Poe could put to words. Maybe it had offered him the comfort of life outside the scope of merely surviving.

Now, that was all being taken away from him. And Poe knew he was the reason Armitage had let his guard down. He was the reason death stalked him again, because he was the reason Armitage was still alive.

There was an obligation in that, Poe acknowledged. A responsibility that was his alone.

_I will protect him._

Poe paused in the doorway to mess, eyes wandering the bright green ‘ _Welcome_ _’_ sign that, all these weeks later, still hung over the serving stations. Poe remembered when he’d first seen the sign, remembered smiling at the idea that Finn and Connix had taken the time on such a juvenile herald of good will. Now the sign hung over the room with the weight of a lie, and Poe wanted nothing more than to stalk across the hall and tear it free - shred it to pieces and use it for tinder and burn down the whole of this fake facade that had tricked each and every one of them.

Instead, Poe observed the people already seated at the tables inside. First meal would not be served for another quarter of a standard hour, but a handful of former Order members were gathered and waiting. There was a certain quality to the quiet conversations taking place between the hunched forms, and Poe sensed that these people had been here far longer than time could justify. It seemed they too sensed something on base was amiss. And when Poe observed Phasma from a distance, her attention absorbed by her datapad on the table before her, fingers pressed across her mouth in what Poe would guess was thought, he knew she understood the danger they were all in. If he'd had the time, he would have gone to her, asked for her help, asked for her advice.

Asked if she wanted to help him steal Armitage away to safety, because he was beginning to doubt he could do any of this on his own.

Instead, Poe made his way alone to the room where he would face down Armitage’s executioners. He saw the door a short distance ahead, saw the droid that stood guard beside it, watching him as he approached. Poe stared into its artificial eye and wondered who was on the other side, who would see the footage of him and Armitage walking hand in hand this morning - what would they think, what would they do, when they discovered Armitage Hux meant something to someone.

“Mr. Dameron?” The aide that greeted Poe was the same woman from the day prior. She smiled up at him in the genial manner Poe recognized from a lifetime spent in cantinas buying pretty people drinks. There was an edge to how she moved that revealed her excitement, and Poe remembered how she’d looked at him yesterday, like he was on display for her eyes only. Maybe another version of himself would have welcomed the attention, the same version that used to actively seek out a stranger's companionable physical affection. Poe was no longer that person, had not been for a long time. “Please come in. The Senators are running a few minutes behind, but you may wait inside with me.”

As the aide stepped aside to allow him to enter, the droid remained in the corridor, head turning to watch him as the door slid closed on its hydraulic tracks. Poe saw a flicker there, in the split second of him stepping past the threshold and the droid being left behind, that made him feel as if it were watching him still, unhindered by the durasteel that separated them.

He said, for not the first time, as he stared at the spot on the closed door where the droid lingered beyond, “It’s General.”

“Oh yes, you told me yesterday, I remember now." Poe turned to find the aide holding a datapad aloft. "I’m sorry, it’s only,” The screen was alight with words Poe couldn’t read from where he stood, but she gestured at it as if it were an excuse, “Technically the Resistance is not a military, so our files do not identify any active titles or ranks. But if you prefer general…”

He’d never liked the title, had never thought he’d earned it. But now it felt like it mattered in the way all the nuance in his life mattered, because a general should have a say in the future of his soldiers, and Armitage was _theirs_ now. As much a member of the Resistance as Finn and Rey and all the other strays they’d picked up along the path to victory.

“Not a military, eh?” Poe said the words scathingly, almost laughed, because they were more of a military than the sad excuse for a peacekeeping fleet the Senate had reduced their Navy to. “I’ll have to let my men know. What _does_ that make us, I wonder?”

The aide had gone pale, almost as pale as Armitage. “Oh no, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I meant nothing by it, really. I only-”

Poe shook his head, dismissing her with one of those easy smiles he used when his new recruits got a little too starstruck. Except, this time it didn’t come easy. It was strained, and the words he spoke were not disarming as he’d intended, but instead mean with a spirit that was unlike him, “I know, we’re only a bunch of brutes with some fancy ships to you all.”

The aide laughed, high and a little shrill, oblivious to Poe’s own discomfort. Yeah, starstruck was an understatement.

“Mr- _General_ Dameron, would it be alright if I- well, would you be offended if I got your holo- I mean, together, a holo of us together?” She had slid a stylus from her datapad, one that Poe identified as a 3D imaging pen. The tiny device caught the light as she rolled it between her fingers nervously. “Please? Oh stars, I am making this uncomfortably strange. I am so sorry.”

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea.” Poe didn’t know where she even came up with the idea. The aide’s obvious disappointment compelled him to find out. “Why do you want _my_ holo?”

“Oh- well, my sister would die if she saw, she’s obsessed-” Another nervous laugh, and then she was outright blushing. “I’m sorry, you’re absolutely right. This is inappropriate, it’s just that you’re a hero of the Resistance and I thought I’d ask.”

“Hero of the Resistance?” Poe wasn’t gonna lie, he liked the sound of it. Or would have, had the implication it carried not sank into his gut with the weight of an unwelcome encumbrance.

“You don’t keep up with the holo network?”

“Can’t say I’ve had the time.” Poe didn’t keep up with much anything, these days, let alone what was popular on the holo net. That the _Resistance_ had become popular, when they’d spent the greater part of the last five years failing to recruit people and ships, let alone wrangling something as intangible as _public support_.

“Of course not. I’m sorry, really I am.”

When she slotted the stylus back inside her datapad Poe felt little relief. Ofant’s droids were invasive enough, Poe really didn’t want to have to worry about people asking him for his holo. Whoever had leaked Resistance reports to the public must have leaked his name along with them, and suddenly the image of the droid just outside the door struck him cold. Were people _watching_ them? Was the base on display like some Outer Rim freak show?

“Again, I am sorry, General Dameron. The Senators will be here shortly-”

And at that moment, a door at the far end of the room opened and four Senators walked in, followed by Leia.

_Leia._

_Leia_ , who was _supposed_ to be with _Armitage_.

Leia, who was striding across the room straight towards him with a _look_ on her face that could peel flesh from bone.

“Do not panic, Poe.” Leia’s voice brokered no question as to what Poe might panic about. Poe had not met the Senators personally, but by virtue of process of elimination he could tell who was missing from the group. “They required that I be here for your interview, and Ofant went to the uplink station in my stead.”

“ _Armitage_.” Dread consumed him, suffocating with a sickness that might swallow him whole. His eyes flickered over to the aide who had stepped away to a respectable distance but watched them both. Poe wasn’t sure if she could hear them, but he gambled she might. He lowered his voice nearly to a whisper, “Leia, I have to _go_.”

“You can’t." _Out of the question._ "You have to talk with them, you _must_ cooperate. Ofant won’t do anything, he can’t, because the Senate needs Hux right now. And Rose is there so he is not alone.” But he _was_ alone, Armitage was always alone, had always been alone, in the ways that mattered. And now when he needed Poe the most, he was here, on the wrong side of the battlefront, while Armitage was flanked and cut off from help. “Poe, he’s safe, I promise. And you have a more important task.”

 _Safe._ It sounded strange, tasted wrong. Armitage wasn’t safe, Poe didn’t think any of them were safe.

Yet even as Leia’s Force reached out to touch him - tender and calming, offering a balm to his nerves - Poe could feel her own unease, her own anger. She believed what she said but agreed it didn’t mean Armitage was entirely out of danger. Danger came in more forms than the physical. Poe saw that now, could feel how it stalked him from the shadows of the base, harrowing his mind and taking root in his heart.

“Did they send Ofant, or did he volunteer.” Poe didn’t know _why_ it mattered, but was certain it did, could feel how the answer could tip the balance of fate.

“He volunteered. Insisted, actually.”

Poe breathed out a sharp sigh, looking up to consider the four Senators who stood a short distance off. Two female humans, one Vratix, and a Iktotchi. Poe had not kept up with politics. Once he had retired from the Navy and joined the Resistance he had found little interest, let alone time, to follow the machinations of the New Republic’s legislative arm. He knew a majority of the Senate had been killed during the Hosnian Cataclysm, he also knew that the interim government consisted of those surviving Senators and specially elected officials. What he didn’t know was who was of the former versus the latter group, and again, something inside Poe told him that mattered.

“Leia,” Poe dropped his voice as he turned back to her, again hoping he was quiet enough to not be overheard. “Who does Ofant represent?”

The expression on Leia’s face should have been enough. Quickly, she smoothed it over as she spoke, “Coruscant, but his homeworld was in the Hosnian system. His family was killed when it was destroyed.”

_Of kriffing course._

“Poe, listen to me.” Leia’s softened words would have appeared casual to any quick glances, but Poe knew her better than that. “Only Jain Mithra was a Senator during the Cataclysm. Ofant and the others are special elections. She holds the power among them, and in the greater Interim Senate. Don’t let Ofant distract you, Mithra is who needs swayed.”

 _Swayed?_ Poe stared into Leia’s eyes, felt the acute absence of her Force and realized the weight of what she was implying. “They’re undecided?”

“Mithra is. That’s all that matters right now.”

A tentative hope filled him, cloyingly sweet on the back of his tongue, like something he had tried to swallow but refused to stay down.

“What do I do?” Poe breathed it out along with all the desperation and panic and _anger._

What could he say to these people, the very same people whose inaction had likely resulted in as much suffering as Armitage’s action? Poe thought maybe he should tell them they were all even now, and the suffering should stop. He was certain the death of one man would not be able to fix what was wrong in the galaxy - not when they’d all been fighting this same war for two generations. Especially not when Armitage’s life could help, _was_ helping, in the way only he could reach the Order and broker a greater peace they’d all been striving for.

If that didn’t make up for the horror of Starkiller Base, it at least had to be a start? It at least had to be worth more than Armitage’s life?

Poe looked to Leia, saw in her something he did not expect, an earnestness that had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the motherly woman who had welcomed the wearied remains of their enemy into the home of their base.

“Tell them. Tell them everything.”

_Everything?_

“Fight for him Poe. Isn’t that why I recruited you all those years ago? Because you were a fighter?” And Poe understood, he understood _everything_.

Poe was a _fighter_. It’s who he was, who he always would be. And it’s who he needed to be.

“You mean it wasn’t one of my recruitment posters that caught your eye?” Poe smiled brokenly, a fragment of the person he was but there still, just under his surface, waiting to be set free.

“Hardly.” Leia sniffed, a fleeting sparkle in her eye. There and gone again before a hardened expression replaced the mirth. “It might be small, and it might be slim, but we have a chance. Don’t give up hope, Poe. Don’t let _him_ give up hope.”

Poe wasn’t sure if Armitage had any hope to begin with, and he was certain if he had it was all spent now. But if Poe had to hold onto enough for the both of them, then that was what we would do.

“Mr. Dameron,” The Senator who spoke was, Poe assumed, Jain Mithra. She held herself with a poise he’d only ever seen in Leia - a grace that superseded her young features and spoke of a comfortable power and an acute intelligence. He held her eyes as she gestured at the table where an empty chair sat before a datapad and a glass of water. “Please have a seat, if you’re ready to begin.”

And as Poe settled into the chair, he smiled a familiar smile, felt how it reached his eyes with an honesty that would not have been possible earlier that morning. “How can I be of service?”

Mithra waited for him to be seated before she took her own, the other Senators following suit. They took their time, lifting their skirts and their robes and arranging themselves around Jain Mithra like a flock birds come earthenside to roost. And Poe observed the subtleties of the dynamic Leia had described. Mithra was in charge of these people, evident in the silent respect she commanded. That they would follow her recommendations, or at least weigh them in a capacity that could tip the scale enough in his favor was obvious. If Poe could convince her...maybe there was hope to be had. _Tell them everything._ Poe closed his eyes, a brief indulgence, turning the words over in his mind. Everything would entail all the secrets Armitage had trusted him with - all the weak and vulnerable things Poe knew he had never shared with another - things that were not Poe's to share with these people.

But he would, if it meant he could save Armitage's life.

“We’d like to speak with you regarding your mission to the Academy and your experience here on base working with the First Order defectors.” Mithra indicated the datapad that had been placed at his seat, and Poe hesitated as he considered what he would find loaded on it. _My report._

“Of course, Senator.” Poe loosed a breath he hadn't meant to hold and thumbed the screen on. The datapad illuminated with his official report on the Academy mission, along with all the holos they had taken and the footage that had been recovered. Poe's stomach flipped. He had no desire to relive his memories from the Academy. Not when he relived them every night in the depths of his dreams, where the faces of his dead pilots melted away to reveal _her_ \- that little girl, gasping and purple and far too _young_. “My report on the Academy was comprehensive, but I can clarify anything you have questions about.”

“We understand it is a difficult topic, so I’ll try to keep our questions brief.” Mithra read from her own datapad, eyes catching on something Poe was not privy to. “The team that was selected included several First Order personnel?”

“Yes. We asked former Captain Phasma to recommend two of her people to accompany us along with her to the Academy. That would have been former Trooper Kayvee Nine and former Lieutenant Trig.”

“What was the reasoning behind her selections?”

“Both Kayvee Nine and Trig have data reconnaissance experience, and we chose Phasma to act as their senior officer. We’ve found that the former Order members respond well to familiar command structures so we’ve tried to maintain that chain where we can while including them in Resistance efforts.” Finn told him it was First Order conditioning that made them reliant on a command structure, Poe thought maybe it was just the fact that the entirety of their lives had been spent in a military.

“Why was General Hux not brought on the mission?”

 _Right to the point, eh?_ Poe waited for Mithra to look up from her datapad before he answered. When their eyes met he saw her suspicions, the same ones Poe might had held, not so long ago, before he knew Armitage. “He wanted to go, we fought about it. Leia and I decided it was for the best that he stay behind.”

Mithra held his gaze, as unwavering as her voice. “And why was that?”

“His work reaching the rest of the First Order was deemed vital. We did not want to interrupt his efforts by taking him along on a mission that could span several weeks.” Also, Armitage was not deemed mentally fit enough for the mission. He wasn’t well, then. He still wasn’t well now, if Poe were honest with himself.

But he had been doing so much _better_. 

Poe dropped his eyes to the datapad, an excuse to regroup his thoughts with his breath, before dragging his attention back to Mithra. Curiosity sparked, beyond her suspicion, and Poe imagined it had little to do with the words he had spoken but what he had yet to say. What she wanted to hear, Poe could not guess, but it was obvious she was searching for something - an answer to a question she was holding back from asking, and if Poe could only figure out what that was...Poe held her gaze, kept his expression and body language open, relaxed, nonthreatening.

Finally, she spoke again. “Who told you about the existence of the Academy?”

“Former Lieutenant Mitaka told us. He was able to retrieve the coordinates from the Finalizer and passed them onto us.”

“At any point did General Hux bring up the Academy, in the weeks preceding the arrival of the Finalizer?”

Poe faltered, here, following the thread of questioning and not liking what he found at the end. “No, he never spoke of it.”

“Why do you think that is?”

 _Because we didn_ _’t trust him enough to do anything other than keep him in a prison cell._ "The Academy’s location was kept confidential, I doubt he would have known the location. So even if Armitage brought it up we would not have been able to arrange a rescue mission.” 

And there it was, that curiosity again, like the spark of a machine firing alive.

Mithra opened her mouth, closed it, before asking, “You don’t think a member of the Supreme Leader’s inner council would know the location of such an important Order asset? Especially someone with General Hux’s history as one of the former directors of the Academy?”

Poe swallowed, considering his words carefully before speaking. “I couldn’t say for sure, but I know it would not have mattered if he did.”

“And why is that?”

 _Because the Order is a fucking fanatical cult and those kids had no chance._ “Our med droids performed several dozen biological and molecular autopsies, the deaths were all traced back to a time stamp that would have put them within one standard cycle after our defeat of the Sith fleet on Exegol. At that time, Armitage was in a medically induced coma healing from injuries sustained while fleeing the Steadfast.”

“That does not explain why he would not bring it up after he awoke.”

Poe realized, suddenly, that Leia was right. Mithra wasn’t interested in the facts, she’d have had access to those already, the timeline pieced together from the daily reports Leia would have submitted. This was an evaluation of Armitage’s character, and suddenly, Poe knew exactly what he needed to say.

“When I arrived back from the Academy, Armitage was waiting,” Poe spoke slowly, giving each word the space it needed, the weight it required. Mithra's gaze was piercing. “He came to comfort me, to tell me that the deaths of those children were not my fault, that it was Order protocol that demanded their death in the face of surrender. Although he never spoke of it before the mission, he knew what I was going to find there, and he confided in me of his fear that he could not reach the rest of the Order because they had followed the same protocol. In fact, Armitage was distraught over it, that the young people of the Order would die to a directive put in place by his father's generation.”

And that must have done it, because Mithra _broke_.

“Armitage- you keep calling him that. Why?” Her attention leveled on him with an intensity that had not been present, before, evident in the way her words snapped at the air between them; little crackles of frustration and curiosity in equal proportion, demanding an explanation that would make sense. And again, Poe saw how she was directing the conversation around Armitage’s character, around the relationship they shared.

 _Were_ they sending him to death? Or was it really as Leia said, could fate still be swayed?

“Senator, may I speak freely?” Poe allowed himself a quick glance at Leia, who sat at the head of the table, physically removed from both him and the group of Senators. Her expression was blank but he felt her Force reach out and touch him - _nudge_ him.

Turning back to Mithra, he saw how she pursed her lips against her own thoughts, head cocked to the side, eyes roaming his face for evidence of something he hoped he could provide. “I’m listening.”

And this was his chance. Poe steadied his pounding heart, unclenched his fists, and he spoke.

“I’ve spent my whole life fighting to protect the people of our galaxy, the same people my parents fought to protect, a war that has lasted _two generations_. And we were _losing_ that war until Armitage turned spy. The Resistance didn't save the galaxy, _he_ did. Now, _he_ can end this war, not us. And he wants to. He cares about his people enough to realize that what is best for them is not the Order, but a life in the New Republic. That’s all him, neither Leia nor I or anyone asked him to do this.” Here, Poe paused, gathered his breath and forming it into words as he said, “The Academy changed me in a way war never did. Those children did not choose their fate, it was chosen for them. Just as it was chosen for Armitage and every single person who followed him here to Ajan Kloss. Like me, they were born into this conflict. But when they were finally given an opportunity to make a choice for themselves, they chose _us._ They chose the New Republic."

And then he was looking to the others, the three Senators who had sat sentinel over a one-sided conversation. What were _they_ thinking? Were they just as unconvinced? Would what he had to say even matter to any of them? Poe made eye contact with each of them, pleading for them to understand. "I know you want to hold Armitage accountable, that the public wants his arrest...his execution. But he put his trust in us, both the Resistance and the New Republic. So what would it say, if we turned that trust around and used it against him _?_ Used it against all of them?”

And Poe watched as his words settled into their thoughts, the way their gazes slipped from him, attention folded internal towards what Poe could only hope was understanding.

But then Mithra spoke, “Mr. Dameron, if I may speak _freely,_ _”_ Her voice _demanded_ , and Poe looked from the other Senators to her. The expression on her face was not kind, or understanding, but carved from an intensity that left no room for argument. “General Hux is responsible for the deaths of several billion, a whole system’s worth of souls.”

“I know.” Poe acknowledged, even as all the men and women he himself had gotten killed passed through his mind. People with names and faces and friends and families that Poe knew, people Poe walked by everyday knowing that he was responsible for their loved one’s death. If Armitage was a monster for what he did than Poe was something far worse.

Armitage struck down billions to win a war. Poe led his friends to death by the leash of his own luck. Gambled all their lives against a willful disregard for their mortality because his own had always been so infallible.

“Then explain how you-”

“Because he’s a good man.” Poe blurted out before he could stop himself. His hands had turned back to fists atop the table, nearly knocking over the glass of water. Poe fought the urge to push his hand through his hair.

Mithra caught his eyes, held them. “That's not enough.”

 _Of course it is, that's the whole point._ “Isn't it? Shouldn't it be enough? At least enough for another chance?”

The look on Mithra’s face was inscrutable, but there was something there, beneath the surface of her thoughts - Poe knew if he could only draw it out...

“He’s trying Senator. He’s trying so hard. Please don’t discount everything he’s done for the Resistance. He turned on the Order and gave us what we needed to win this war. That should mean _something_.” His fists were shaking now, the water in the glass beside him quivering in tandem with his heart.

“It’s why he has not been arrested already, and why he still walks the base freely. Do not assume I have no room for empathy or understanding of the greater picture here, Mr. Dameron.” Mithra’s voice had dropped into a dangerous tone, and Poe closed his mouth as she continued to speak. “As it stands, the man I observed yesterday was not the man I expected. But that changes very little, not when I have a galaxy full of people who suffered very directly at his hands.”

She paused, lips pressed together as she took a breath. Nothing could prepare Poe for what she would say next. “He admitted that he was not just the face of Starkiller Base, but chief officer of the very team that designed it. While we would all like to outrun the mistakes of our past when we have a change of heart, the reality is that we must take personal responsibility for our actions.”

_No, no, no-_

As the threads of hope unraveled, Poe felt his hold slip. And suddenly Poe _feared -_ feared he had fucked this up, completely blown his one _chance_.

His breath came fast, his chest tight with an emotion he couldn’t articulate. The feeling that this was it, that he had lost Armitage irrevocably - lost him before he ever had the chance to have him - it consumed Poe. But also, something _more_. That this was all his fault, because Armitage had chosen death for himself long ago, had walked that path prepared for it’s inevitability, until Poe had swooped in and gave him _hope_ for something else in his naive quest to be a fucking _hero._

_Hero of the Resistance._

Poe wasn’t a hero. How could he be, when he couldn’t even protect the man he loved?

Poe trembled, head held up against a defeat he would not acknowledge. And as he looked to Leia, whose gaze was drawn and distant, intense only in the way she was subsumed in a depth of Force Poe would never understand, her words echoed in the chamber of his thoughts: _Everything. Tell them everything._

Hadn’t he? Hadn't he told them _everything?_ All the secret things Armitage had trusted with no one else but him - every weakness and pain and and fear? What more was left, if this was not enough? What did Poe have left to give, left to say? There had to be something else, something Poe was _missing_. Words without form but he could almost hear, buzzing distantly, just out of reach. Words that needed saying, had needed saying for so much longer than the span of time he’d spent in this room.

And then it struck him, blinding and obvious and so so simple - Poe had not told them _everything_.

He had not told them the most important thing yet.

_I love him, I love him so much._

The _feeling_ that seized Poe’s chest almost left him gasping. Instead, he dropped his head and drew in a slow, deep breath. Out with his exhale left the tension that had been building in him for the last cycle, all the fear and despair and anger that had left no room for those other things, the things he had discovered inside himself that were meant for Armitage alone. The fondness and amazement and affection - the _love_ that he had for the incredible man he had grown to know.

_He's gonna be so mad that I told them first._

“I love him, I love Armitage Hux.” Poe breathed the words out, a confession that was so much more like an unburdening, that klaxon call to the universe he had been holding inside himself for too long. If Poe could measure the distance between himself and Armitage, in that moment it was as if he were right there beside him, like Poe could reach out beyond the veil of space and time and feel the touch of Armitage’s hand in his own.

He heard the gasp from the aide, sensed the eyes of the Senators on him, as he closed his eyes over the feeling surrounding him - as he held it close and harbored it in the safety of his heart.

_I love you so much, Armitage Hux._

-

Hux imagined he could still feel Poe’s gaze, even now, thirty five standard minutes later, when the gulf between them felt far greater than any physical distance.

Through the slotted windows he watched the trees pass in a whipped up blur. The transport followed a worn path through the swampy woods, the familiar speckled light of the early morning sun flashing through the transport and burning patterns into Hux’s too exposed skin. He clasped his bare hands together, his palms strangely cool in the heat of Ajan Kloss’s humid air. He was alone in the back of the transport, but any solace he would have once found in an eremetic existence was lost to a yearning for Poe’s presence, his touch and his voice.

In the absence of Poe, death worried at the edge of his thoughts. Whatever strength he had derived from the task at hand was eroded in the actual face of it. Because if his time had been short before, it was now running out, and as Hux watched the flickering light fill the shuttle and focused his attention on slowing his breath, he decided that if he were given one request, it would be that he wasn’t alone when death finally came for him.

Hux considered that this might be how the remnants of the Order felt; crippled ships stranded alone among unfamiliar stars, bereft of the comfort of the fleet, awaiting the slow creep of the inevitable.

 _You're okay_. The words Poe had spoken to him so many times before had become a mantra in his mind, a point of focus Hux could breath into. Now, he filled his lungs so he could exhale his thoughts. From the emptiness Hux crafted a fortitude of will around the frayed tapestry of his mind. _You're okay, Hux. You'll be okay._

Organa would already be awaiting him at the uplink station. Hux suspected her desire to be there was less to oversee the operation and more to see this through to the end. And while Hux would never call the woman a friend, he might call her an ally, as he recognized now that Organa’s investment in him, in his work, represented more than a professional kinship. It represented an achievement that encompassed the greater goal of uniting the galaxy, something they had both spent their very different lifetimes pursuing. Hux realized, as he watched the landscape flash beyond the transport, that he was glad to be able to share this moment with her. That amongst everyone on base, perhaps only Organa understood the magnitude of what was about to take place. If Hux reached the First Order, if they responded as he suspected they would...it would end a conflict that had spanned generations.

The galaxy might finally find peace.

It might even find order.

Hux’s codepad was fully charged, thanks, in part, to one of his power cells that he carried with him. He was wary of allowing the codepad out of his sight let alone powered down. The key to everything was stored in this small device which sat in his lap, and Hux guarded it with a tenacity that was borderline obsessive. The pristine leather case protected the future of the people of the First Order, contained a lifeline that could change the tide of fate for so _many._

And now Hux maybe understood some new aspect of Poe. Because if anyone could claim putting the lives of many above their own, it would be him. Still, Hux almost felt selfish that as he endeavored on a journey that encompassed an achievement of galactic proportions, his thoughts kept drifting to the singular life of Poe Dameron. Because every kilometre that took him closer to _this_ also took him further from Poe. And as much as Hux wanted to find strength in his task, it was only the thought of returning to Poe that held him together.

“Eta five minutes.”

The engineer, Rose Tico, the same woman who had once _bit_ him, spoke from the pilot’s seat of the transport. What conversation they shared over the ride out had been awkward in the way all of Hux’s fleeting interactions with Poe’s friends had been. A stilted effort at forced congeniality that left all parties silent and stumped, unsure how to proceed with a history that left very little in the way of verbal discourse. Yet, Tico made an effort, if only because she evidently took her job very seriously, and had hounded from Hux all of the details he knew regarding the Finalizer’s network and its connection protocols. In this, he allowed a burgeoning respect.

A respect that only grew when they disembarked the transport.

When Tico had whispered “ _Oh fuck._ _”_ over the comm as the transport breached the treeline onto the beach, Hux knew instantly something was amiss. When she opened the transport door while he was still maneuvering free of his harness, the bright wedge of light silhouetting her small form so it was obvious her hand rested on her blaster, Hux knew something was _wrong_.

And when she stepped in front of him as he disembarked, putting herself between Hux and the man who would see him dead, something small inside Hux shivered to life. Something that looked like weakness, but wore the guise of gratitude.

Across the sand, Fineas Ofant awaited him.

Ofant observed him with a blinding fixation, all bared teeth and sharp eyes, a trailing gaze that absorbed everything in its wake and then absconded it in favor of judgement passed. His dark hair tousled with the breeze that blew off the lake, his robes catching so they billowed in a way that made him look larger than he actually was. And the weight of his posture was at ease, comfort befit a man used to the natural graces of power.

It crossed Hux’s mind, then, that Ofant would have gone far with the Order.

“Ah, if it’s not the man of the hour.” Ofant’s tone was the same Hux remembered from his interview, a self-indulgent thing that did little to hide his malice. “I’m afraid Princess Organa is unexpectedly tied up this morning, so I volunteered in her stead.”

As Tico’s eyes met his knowingly, Hux nearly turned away. Instead he inclined his head toward her, deferring to her judgement because, in this, Hux recognized he was already outplayed.

“All right, as the highest ranked officer here, I’m in charge.” Tico pointed a finger at Ofant in a way that Hux might have once pointed a blaster at her. “You’ll observe _only_ , and _that_ ,” She shifted her finger to instead point at a droid that stood beneath the shade structure beside the uplink station. “That thing is not allowed inside the station. This mission is confidential, and I can’t allow it to record the slicing we’ll be performing.” 

Hux's blood chilled. He had been so absorbed in Ofant that he had not noted the droid's presence.

“That won’t be a problem Ms. Tico, I will admit I am here as a curious observer and have no desire to interfere with General Hux’s work.” Ofant tipped his head in a facsimile of respect, a perfunctory bow that was more mocking than anything else. His eyes never left Hux, even as he addressed Tico.

But Tico had turned to him, was looking up at him as if they bore no difference in height, much less the extreme of which separated them, “If he does anything funny I have the authority to shoot him, so you tell me if he does anything _funny_.” Her hand still rested on the blaster at her hip, thumb fiddling with the clasp that kept it secure.

Hux lifted his eyebrows, held back his smile. Tico was aggressive to a degree that would have landed her in reconditioning enough times for a permanent reassignment, had she ever used that tone with a First Order officer. But, Hux could not find it in himself to fault her, not when that small thing inside him clutched her words close. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary, but thank you.”

Tico stared at him like he’d just sprouted a second head. Hux supposed he deserved as much.

Together, they prepared the station for transmission as Ofant watched from where he had taken up a post beside his droid. While Tico warmed the ion generator and gave the station the few minutes it would need to produce enough power to operate at capacity, Hux checked over the uplink cable that connected the station to the Finalizer. The dive crews had been unsuccessful in removing the subspace antennae from his sunken ship, so the cable remained, and Hux found that it was now half buried in the sand, the weeks of tides and time transforming it into something that was never supposed to be permanent. It split the beach down the middle, slipping beneath the water to waver beneath the shimmering surface of the lake like the desiccated corpse of some snaking beast caught retreating home, the blazing heat of the sun finally rendering it dead.

Hux followed the path the cable took, boots disbursing sand and fluting a path down to where the waves traced patterns into the beach. He gazed out over the lake to the scuttled Finalizer. She was no different now than she had been four days past, when he’d last seen the great black scar of her splitting Ajan Kloss’s too blue sky. But now the sand sat empty of the salvaged durasteel, the corpses since buried, the droids off on some new and more important task. What was left was a lonely beach and a relic of a life Hux felt far removed from, a life that would always haunt him in the same way the Finalizer would now always haunt this beach.

“That must have been a sight to see. I wish I had been here to capture the moment for myself.”

Ofant’s voice was close, too close, and Hux stiffened when he realized he had not heard his approach.

Slowly, he turned his head. Slower yet, his stomach crawled into his throat. Ofant leaned in close over his shoulder, in the same spot Poe had filled all those weeks ago, when Hux had stood on this beach and watched the Finalizer fall to her death on a foreign shore. It was not a memory he cared to share with anyone, least of all this man. Yet, Hux felt as it was tainted, couldn’t stop his psyche from overlaying Ofant into the memory, like a burned out holo left too long on pause.

Hux did not move, even as the heat of Ofant’s body ebbed against him. He did not turn his head away, even when Ofant drew a breath to speak again. And his pulse did not race, because the frozen blood in his veins had already crawled ice up his spine.

But none of it mattered, because despite all his effort to disguise his weakness, men like Ofant had sniffed out Hux often enough that he knew he’d already revealed too much.

Ofant’s words, when they came, speared home. “Did you weep when it fell? I think I might have, but likely not for the same reason as you.”

Hux let out a thin breath, couldn’t stop it, heard how it wavered - barely, but enough. Ofant’s smile _widened,_ and then he struck again, fast and precise, finding his opening and taking the advantage.

“I’m sure you have quite the story to tell, it'd be a shame to never share it. Have you thought of leaving a document of your life behind? Something for the people to remember you by?”

Hux should have felt anger. He should have felt contempt. Instead, Hux felt sick - sick in a way that felt familiar, in the way dread felt familiar, a cacophonous cry of _warning_.

“I could arrange it, if you like. I understand your limited time is precious, but luckily I brought my equipment along so we can do it back at the base. What do you think?” And Ofant’s voice lilted with the question. It was not kind - it was knowing, and it was cruel. “Ah! I already have a name, we could call it _The Life and Death of Starkiller._ It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

Once, Hux had thought Poe the kind of man who used kindness as a weapon. Now, Ofant wielded it like dull-edge knife - not a quick slicing or stabbing, but a sawing. Blunt and brutal and vicious.

Hux stayed quiet, and he stayed still, but inside he trembled. Inside, he called out for Poe.

“ _Hux!_ ” Tico’s voice cut through Ofant’s spell. The ice that had frozen his spine shattered with the sound and Hux turned abruptly on his heel. Ofant loomed before him, all dark shapes and imposing lines, too close and too much, and Hux felt his body moving of its own accord, slipping around Ofant while his mind flayed itself with the idea that he might never make it to his execution because Ofant would kill him first.

Tico was jogging down the beach, kicking up sand in her haste to reach him. Hux moved towards her with as much speed as he allowed himself, his long gait closing the distance quickly. But even as he left Ofant behind, he felt his gaze follow; a stifling survey that exposed Hux in a way that almost felt perverse. He fought the urge to make himself look small, to cross his arms over his chest and hide his hands in the folds - fought the urge to glance back, because if Ofant saw him now Hux wasn't sure he could hide all his cracks.

“Are we set up?” His gait was more stiff than he liked as he fell into step beside Tico. She looked up at him with an earnest understanding, her hand again on the blaster holstered at her hip.

“You’re not supposed to be alone with him.” She stated as if _he_ had gone up to Ofant and chatted him up.

“I’m well aware.” Hux murmured as he hurried across the beach with Tico at his heel.

Together, they entered the uplink station. And together they watched as Ofant slipped in behind them. His presence was a host of a burdensome scrutiny that harried at Hux and made his skin feel as if it were being peeled from his flesh. As Hux placed his codepad carefully atop his terminal, Ofant came up beside him. As he switched on the small work lamp beside his station, Ofant’s body leaned into his light. And as he turned away to help Tico identify the correct network connection on her holo screen, Hux could feel Ofant at his back, his bodily presence consuming him as his eyes drew gooseflesh over his skin. Ofant watched Hux with an assiduity that left no room for wonder, because Ofant was obscene with his intentions, lecherous with his desire. He was not here to _observe_ , he was here to gloat - and he was here to make sure Hux knew who had _won_.

Hux did all he could to push Ofant to the back of his mind, again breathing in a focus that was becoming ever elusive, exhaling out the unease that felt as familiar as the keystrokes he typed into his terminal.

But he had a job to do, and Hux had out suffered far greater threats in the face of his work.

As he and Tico booted up the Finalizer’s system BIOS, his fingers entered credentials he had logged a thousand times. Hux acknowledged this would be the last time he would be here, maneuvering through a series of firewalls that he had helped design, reverse engineering security protocols that he’d once overseen in his attempt to keep the First Order _safe_. And as he plugged his codepad into the fireport and handed it to Tico so she could update his network permissions, and as he watched the strings of binary flash over the mirrored screens of his pad and the uplink terminal, he thought how the future of the Order depended on his game sim, a thing that would have landed _him_ in reconditioning all those years ago if Brendol or one of his peers had discovered he was behind it.

Hux realized, as he typed out the code that would execute the firmware update across all of First Order net, that this was, in fact, the legacy he would leave - this purile remnant of his childhood that would save a whole generation of First Order men and women.

And as Hux pulled up _Force_ and reread his message once more, something inside him thought maybe his legacy didn’t sound so much like a tragedy after all.

“Something is blocking the upload.” Tico’s voice didn’t sound worried, but it did sound frustrated.

“Oh, I hope we have not hit snag in your plan.” Ofant, who had perched himself against the center console where Hux worked, mocked worry. Hux suppressed a sneer as he turned from his terminal to Tico, Ofant’s presence edging his thoughts as his physical form edged his peripheral vision. Ofant followed him as he had this entire time, leaning over Hux’s console and into his personal space, eyes not on Tico’s screen but unrelenting in their crawl down the back of Hux’s neck. He suppressed a shiver, unable to physically shake the unwelcome weight of Ofant’s attention just as he couldn’t shake the creep of his thoughts into the underbelly of his mind.

“Let me see the error code.” Hux quickly - too quickly - stood from his chair, the grind of metal along metal wrenching a flinch out of him. Tico’s eyes met his before slipping over his shoulder to observe Ofant, her lips pressing into a line.

“I don’t recognize it,” She said as Hux looked over her screen, parsing the string of numbers and letters and quickly deducing its source.

“The Finalaizer is throwing it, but it is referencing a local code, something on this end of the network. I assume the Resist-” Even as Hux cut himself off, he knew it was too late. His eyes closed briefly, throat catching in a dry swallow, before he turned his head just enough to see how Ofant's smile had deepened into a _grin_. Hux had slipped, and it had not gone unobserved.

 _Fuck_ Fineas Ofant _._

“I assume there is a local firewall? One that would prevent First Order datapads from accessing Order net?”

“Yeah, but I overrode your pad’s permissions for all access. Shouldn’t that let the upload through?”

 _Ah, there it is._ “The subspace antennaes communicate with each other, but the data distribution depends on local networks. Firmware updates are designed to be homogeneous, so the upload will not initiate if one of the identified networks is inaccessible.” The Finalizer’s network, in this case.

“If I remove the firewall all those datapads on base will gain Order net access,” Tico met his eyes, held his stare. This was a decision Organa should be there to make, but she wasn’t, and it was like Tico had said on the beach - she was the highest ranking officer, so this was her call.

Face pinched tight, her eyes narrowed on him with a consideration that almost made Hux smile because it was the same expression she had worn right before she bit him all that time ago. He remembered the indigence he’d suffered, the shock and disbelief, and later the humiliation, when he’d sat in his quarters and plotted the death of the small girl who had turned out to be more rabid than him.

And when Tico smirked up at him, a dark glint in her eye, Hux thought she might be remembering the same thing. “Fuck it, let’s do it.”

Tico typed in a command line Hux recognized as a network firewall override, then executed the code. The terminal window blinked over a span of seconds that slowed time to a crawl. Hux held his breath, eyes fixated on the brightly flashing cursor. He sensed how Tico tensed beside him, fingers tapping out a rhythm of nervousness that mirrored the pulsating beat of his heart.

Then a string of confirmations scrolled over the window, and the breath Hux had been holding released in a sigh.

The payload had uploaded successfully, pinging a list of network addresses Hux could identify from memory alone: _The Finalizer, The Conqueror, The Harbinger, The Absolution, The Mandator._ Four Star Destroyers and one Dreadnought, five from a fleet that he had last counted at twenty six, the rest lost to a fate Hux doubted he’d live to hear the tale of.

“So…that’s it, we did it?” Tico’s voice was soft, the pale blue glow of the terminal glinting off her earnest eyes as she stared up at him.

“Yes, that's it, we did it.” Hux let himself smile. A small thing, filled with relief, personal with an honesty he knew was not safe to expose, but when he saw how Tico matched his smile, he thought maybe this was okay, maybe she understood.

“Is this a _game sim_?”

Fear speared through Hux, infinite in its reach.

“ _Don_ _’t touch that.”_ Hux snarled as he spun on his heel, but he was too late.

Hux watched as Ofant thumbed through the screens, eyes wandering over the card selections, the rules guide, his player profile still set to the dead star resource cards. And slowly, Ofant's face transformed, as if his long toothed smile had always been crafted from layers of aberrations, that when peeled away revealed something far more monstrous hidden beneath.

“ _This_ is your message to the Order? A _game?_ _”_ Ofant’s voice devolved from that casual joviality to an insidious verve, amusement avowed with a glee that had nothing to do with joy.

A feeling crawled through Hux then, a panic and an embarrassment that he had been _discovered._ And suddenly, he was a boy again, curled up at his father’s feet as he was berated for another one of his stupid childish fantasies, things he should have outgrown by now, things that he would beat from him, whether with words or fists. _Get your head out of the clouds, boy, or I_ _’ll be forced to do it for you._

"Hands off Senator.” Tico stepped forward before Hux could, voice dropped to a threat even as her eyes wandered over the codepad, observing a secret Hux had not revealed to anyone but Poe. "That’s confidential tech.”

“It’s evidence, is what it is.” Ofant quipped as he pulled the plug from the codepad and slipped it into a pocket. Hux felt the room upend around him, his focus swimming as he stared at the spot in Ofant’s robe where he imagined he could see the outline of his codepad, out of his reach with a finality that was so much worse than when it had been locked away amongst the stars in a long lost trunk - than when it had been sunk deep at the bottom of a fathomless lake, forlorn and forgotten. “I’m sure the council will want to know what _game_ you’ve been up to, General Hux. We thought you were doing admirable work here, I’m sorely disappointed to discover you thought to play us for fools.”

Hux couldn’t stop how his body shook, fists clenched at his sides, teeth grinding with a sickening crunch. If he was already a dead man, what would it matter if he leapt over the table and showed Ofant what sort of _game_ he could play? But Tico had a hand on his arm, and as he met her eyes he saw how the almost familiar touch disarmed them both, tension breaking over Hux in a sharp sundering, so strange that as reality crashed down with a force that nearly crushed him, Hux felt _grateful_.

He staggered back, shaking, composed only enough to sweep silently out of the station.

Hux knew Ofant for what he was, had known since he’d first seen that artificial smile - a smile that hid an avarice that would never be sated. Men like Ofant always found Hux - could pick him out from a sea of billions, like moths to a flame that burned too bright in the dark. Hux had spent his life swathing himself in shadows, hiding away the brightest parts of himself from these sorts of men. That one more should find him, now, at his life’s end...that should surprise no one, least of all Hux. Because Ofant was just like his father, just like Snoke, just like Ren. Maybe worse, because where Hux had outplayed the abusers of his past, this man had already won, and there was no strategy Hux could adopt that would end in anything but his absolute surrender.

Ofant would see Hux’s death through to an end of his devising, and he would not even be given the dignity of going down fighting, because the future of the Order depended upon Hux’s ability to keep going despite these blows.

Once, Hux had welcomed death - Had been grateful that fate had presented him with the choice at all - such a small mercy in a life otherwise spoiled by unforgiving cruelty. Now, Hux was stripped of his choices again, left to the whimsy of a world that harbored no sympathy for men like him, men who had made mistakes, men who learned too late in life the things that mattered most.

_I am sorry, I am so sorry._

The wind and the sand and the overwhelming blueness of Ajan Kloss’ sky burned into his eyes and Hux stumbled as he exited the transport. He searched for something, anything, to alleviate this _pain_. Something to step in and tell him everything was okay, that _he_ was okay, or at least could be, if given enough time. He thought of Poe, wished again that he was there, as he had been once before, when Hux’s hands had shook and his breath had hitched and the weight of the world had settled upon him in a way that felt so much like drowning.

Drowning, as the Finalizer had, when she sacrificed her life for her crew so they could live on in her stead.

Hux looked across the beach, squinting through the wetness in his eyes to see the Finalizer swim through his sight like a mirage. He staggered after the vision, marking a path down the beach in shortened steps, his boots dragging furrows through the sand. There had been a comfort in his daily visits to the Finalizer, when he stood on this foreign shore and stared at the great bow of her spearing through water and sky alike in defiance of a fate he had once found such kinship with. Because in her dying throws, the Finalizer had made her mark on this world. Forever changing the landscape of Ajan Kloss, her refusal to be forgotten manifested as a blackened breach against a too bright sky.

Monolithic, even in death.

Hux wondered if he would leave half the mark she had when he died.

He couldn’t stop the tears, anymore. Couldn’t stop the soft whimper that breached his throat and set free his quiet sobs. Couldn’t stop when his knees buckled and he collapsed onto his hands on this beach for the second and final time in his life, succumbing to a weakness that had nothing to do with the sun or the heat or with Kylo Ren. Whatever strength Hux had derived from the abdication of his hold on living abandoned him here, on this shore, bowed before the mausoleum of a life he had crafted from shadow, a life he had done his best with, even when his best meant taking the lives of billions.

And Poe was not there to catch him, not this time, and Hux ached with the pain of what that meant.

_I'm so afraid, Poe._

Quietly, Hux broke down. Privately, he grasped at the shattered pieces of himself that had become unfamiliar. His threads had unraveled so completely that they’d loosened into something as unrecognizable to him as the person he’d seen reflected in the refresher mirror. A stranger donned with his face, dressed in an already dead man’s clothes, playing at a game whose every move led to a loss. Hux sucked in an airless breath, felt the sting of it as the wetness in his throat caught in his chest. Tears filled his mouth, clogged his nose, and then he could no longer contain himself. Hux gasped in a shuddering inhale, and another, until he was bent over his knees and sobbing out all the weak and wretched things he’d hidden away from the world - hidden from himself.

Hux wrapped his arms around himself, bare hands tucking beneath his biceps, fingers curling over his ribs, as he hung his head and _wept_.

_I'm sorry I’m sorry I’m so sorry-_

The sound of sand crunching under foot didn’t reach Hux until it was too late. Above him stood Ofant’s droid. Through the loose fringe of his hair Hux looked up, saw how it’s ocular lens caught the light as it focused on his face, the sophisticated circuitry capturing a version of him no one in the galaxy had a right to witness. Yet, he could not look away from the droid as much as he could not stop the tears that fell down his face. Trapped as he was, arrested by its artificial stare, Hux saw the reflection of himself in it’s glassy gaze - saw what it revealed.

Hux knew how he looked, knew how _this_ looked - A skewing of optics that would paint him as _Starkiller_ mourning a life long dead, a life that he had lived in service to the First Order. A single side of a story he would never have the chance to tell.

“Get out of here, you nuisance, or I’ll short your circuits during your next charge cycle!” Tico shouted from a short distance, her voice carrying over the sand. Hux struggled to find his feet.

As Tico once again placed herself between him and a danger that knew no physical boundary, Hux turned away. His tears had not abated, and he swayed into his watery vision. Desperate, Hux pulled a hand across his face, doing nothing but sticking sand to his tears so his skin not only burned but itched. There was no hiding the evidence of his weakness, not when it had already cracked open his chest and crawled across his skin in an evidential exposure of all the worst parts of himself. His hands shook at his sides, and his head dropped to hide his shame.

“Hey, hey.” Tico’s voice was soft, careful. “The droid’s gone now, it’s leaving with Ofant in our transport. I gave it to him so we wouldn’t have to ride back together.” Tico maneuvered around him like he were a wild animal, cautious but kind, unafraid as she skirted his boundaries with her body and her words. But Hux didn’t care anymore - didn’t care that she saw him like this, didn’t care that he looked like a wreck. Hux was done caring. Let them see, let them _all_ fucking _see_. “Shit man, you look like a mess. Wanna call Poe?”

 _Poe_. Hux closed his eyes, forced out the words,“He’ll be-” But his voice caught in his throat, the sobs still too close to his surface, more tears falling fresh on his face, so he pressed his lips together and shook his head instead.

“He’s at his interview, isn’t he?” Tico reached out then, hand hesitating for only a moment before she placed it on his arm for the second time that day. One pat, then two, and then she left it there atop his sleeve, her small hand a gentled firm pressure. “I'll have Finn come get us. Let’s wait for him in the shade, I can get you some water. That’s what Poe would do if he was here, right?”

If Hux had been the same person he was all those weeks ago, he would not have recognized Tico’s kindness for what it was. He would have seen her touch as an attack, her words as mocking, her friendliness as a weapon. But now, as he let her draw him across the sand to the shade of the uplink station, as she pressed a bottle of water into his hand and stood in not quite companionable silence beside him, he wondered what it meant that he could accept kindness from someone who wasn’t Poe.

“Thank you.” Twice he had spoken those words to Tico that morning, but this time, as his broken voice dropped off and his glassy eyes lowered to meet hers, she didn’t look back at him like he had sprouted a second head, but looked at him as if she were seeing him for the very first time.

“Don’t worry about it. That guy’s an asshole, I’m sorry you have to deal with him.”

_I'm sorry he’s the reason you’re going to die._

Hux turned away, and he closed his eyes. Leaning back to rest against the sun warmed wall of the uplink station, he willed the world away, seeking that empty place inside him that he had once mistaken for peace, but now only felt numb.

_I'm not okay, Poe._

And in that moment, a sensation washed over him.

The feeling reached across what felt like a great distance, closing in with a warmth that had nothing to do with the sun or the air. It staggered to life something inside him, intense only in the way it dredged up the image of Poe’s smile, the feel of his touch, the hold of his hand - So real and so close it was as if he were right there beside him.

_I love him. I love him so much._

The words he wanted to say, the words he had not allowed himself, spoken in a voice that sounded like Poe but buzzed in his ear like the touch of the Force. Hux shook with the feeling even as the sensation faded and he was left alone, again, physically bereft of the only thing in his life he had left to hold onto. Except that now he could feel something else, something lingering in the deepest parts of him, a small seed of hope tentatively rooted.

Here, at the edge of this beach, at the edge of his life, Hux found he was not ready to let go. Whether it was that he’d spent the last of his strength, or that he was actually the coward his father had always told him he was, Hux acknowledged he did not want to die. Despite what good it might bring the whole of the galaxy, he was scared. He wanted another chance. He wanted to be more than just a memory.

He wanted to live.

Slowly, Hux opened his eyes. Across the beach, the black wedge of the Finalizer loomed in frozen sanctuary. Hux bid her good bye from the quiet of his heart.

-

The dilation of energy across the mess hall was as swift as any battle station alarm. Phasma watched as it rolled through her gathered soldiers and crew. Datapads were extracted from pockets, turned over in hands, and passed amongst her people as the devices hard reset in tandem without warning. A firmware update. A once common occurrence that should not have been possible, not when they were disconnected from Order net. Mitaka sat across from her, their bodies already hunched close over her own datapad. It had been open to Hux’s Force profile, the image nearly burned into the now blackened pixels for how long she’d sat staring at her screen. She recognized the warning, knew what it meant. Hux was in _danger_. Danger of the worst kind.

Now, they watched a transformation overcome their people, first the shock, and then the tentative excitement, and lastly the dawning fear. They glanced at one another, hushed whispers converging into a monotonous hum, like a swarm of insects waking to life. Several crew looked in their direction, seeking guidance from the most senior commanders in the hall, and Phasma understood something was dreadfully wrong.

“Captain, I have Order net access.” Mitaka breathed the words out, disbelief plain, and for a few harrowing seconds Phasma panicked - thought _this_ was it. This was the danger Hux was warning them of - That the rest of the fleet had found them, had arrived in Ajan Kloss’s atmosphere in pursuit of their crippled ship, ready to finish what they had started and cannibalize what was left of her men to crew the remnants of the Final Order’s fleet - sacrifice their lives in service to some ultimate bastion of power in a war they had already lost.

Phasma’s datapad flickered, the network connection confirmation blinking as the screen reloaded back into _Force_.

 _Force,_ which had been updated.

The first update in over a _decade_.

Phasma’s throat closed over her heart as it tried to crawl out of her mouth in a joyful sob as the realization hit. It wasn’t danger she sensed, this was _hope._

_Armitage, you fucking genius, you did it. You actually did it._

Across her screen scrolled a message of text, and within it she read a barely hidden message, a message for a future cocooned in an offering of surrender, packaged up and neatly served to the very men and women Hux had been trying to reach for weeks.

-

_Update 4.1.2 : 10:18:06:44 35ABY_

_FORCE: The Card Game_

_Dear players, your defeat is nigh._

_An old force from within heralds your end._

_Your skills alone cannot overcome this threat._

_If you are to survive, foes must become friends._

_The path to victory has been forged but once._

_Unburden your arms, we're waiting for you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all this chapter has been in editing since Saturday and my brain is mush, so this might actually be illegible. Hope it reads right, if not, chapter 9 is gonna be all smut so hopefully that will keep you coming back.


	9. Retreat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, this chapter is 100% NSFW and is either porn or word vomit leading up to porn.
> 
> If smut is not your thing you can safely skip this chapter because I looked and could not find any plot.
> 
> That said, enjoy?

The communications room was dark, so dark that the phantom blue of the comm screens glowed with an eerie peculiarity. Kes’s contact burned up at Poe, a familiar thing that at once felt too abstract to be real. He stared at it, had been staring at it for the last fifteen minutes. If Poe called Kes, his image would appear in the holo projector before him and Poe could see him now: his father’s pale blue façade bleached by light, the lines in his face obscured, his gentle smile catching when the weak connection skipped, and his eyes would shine with a love Poe knew was genuine, but would surely fade away, when Poe told him _everything_.

Poe hadn’t know where else to go, when his interview had ended. After Leia had bid him a gentle goodbye, her own schedule filled, too busy to spare the time it would take to put Poe back together, Poe had come here. Because his father was one of the only people who saw Poe as Poe, rather than his reputation.

But, Poe was suddenly afraid that the comfort he sought from Kes would only to be found in the rehearsed script of their conversation - that any deviation would make _this_ worse. Because Poe knew if he called, his father would pick up, would ask the same questions he always asked, and Poe also knew, for the first time, that his answers would be different.

_Son, what do you mean you’re in love with Starkiller?_

_Doesn’t matter, dad. He’ll be dead soon enough._

Poe turned his screen off, pushed his datapad away, dropped his head to the comms station and willed away his tears.

Against the backdrop of his eyelids an image of the Senate appeared. All hardened eyes and closed faces. How could he think they would understand, when he doubted even his own father would?

No, there was no comfort to be found here. The only comfort Poe could fathom was that which he’d find when Armitage was back safe. Somehow, the source of Poe’s comfort was no longer his friends or his family or the scattered vastness of space from the seat of Black One, but a singular man the galaxy only knew as their enemy.

Poe left the communications room behind.

Despite the late hour of the morning and the people walking the corridors, the base still felt empty, isolating, strangely bereft. The familiar presence of the droid that followed him was an almost welcome relief to the loneliness that hounded his step. Poe thought again of getting on Chirrup and flying out to find the transport in the jungle. He could do it, nothing was physically stopping him. But something told Poe that he needed to trust his friends in this, no matter their history with Armitage; that if he couldn’t believe their confident assurances that the situation was under their control - that everything was okay - then maybe hope really was lost.

But Rose’s fragmented update had dredged up an image of Armitage that Poe _ached_ for. He imagined what Armitage must look like, right now. He’d be huddled in the back of the transport, harness obsessively secured, gloveless hands clasped tightly in his lap. His wind-swept hair would be loose, mussed in the way only the wilds of Ajan Kloss could inspire, falling over his surely furrowed brow. And he’d be warmed, but not feverish, just enough to inspire a dewy sheen of pink across his nose and cheeks.

Poe held that image in his head, secured it, made it real. And then he uncoiled, just a little. The man in Poe’s imagination was not _okay,_ but he was safe, and Poe thought that was the most he could ask for right now.

Poe tucked his hands into his pockets, hung his head, and abandoned thought to the pace his feet set. He wandered the base without a destination, his step so fast to nearly become a slow loping run, loosing himself to the quickened beat of his footfalls. The base passed by him in fissured bits. Voices and bodies slipping in and out of his attention, distant but close, a living fever dream that played out around him. Poe imagined this would be how it was for him: life moving on despite his pain, where the galaxy found justice while Poe only found grief, the fleeting joy he’d had forever spoiled by the memory of watching the man he loved be taken from him, taken by the people he had given up so much to protect.

The grim dark of the thought shook him, and Poe’s heart thumped out of frantic rhythm, his stomach clenched tight. Poe staggered to a stop. Too fast, too abrupt. He heard the whir of the droid behind him fall silent, reflexes just a fraction of a second slower than Poe’s.

 _This is not who you are._ Poe didn’t watch things happen, he _made_ things happen. He defeated odds, he was not defeated by them. Where was that brazen over-confidence that had defined his entire piloting career? Where was the audacious presumption that things would always work out, the will of ego that had always caught him when he fell?

No, Poe was not okay. But he needed to fucking pull himself together, because as bleak as the future may look, there was still a chance, there was still _hope_.

Someone’s shoulder bumped his, a hasty apology lost to the sound of blood in Poe’s ears. But the touch shattered the spell over him, and reality came crashing down in a rush of sight and sound.

Before him yawned the wide open doors of the mess hall. The welcome sign hovered above a sea of heads, his frozen wake a small thing breaking the miasmic milling of bodies surrounding him. Mess was far busier than earlier. The clink and clatter of dishes burst through the humdrum vibration of a thousand voices buzzing into monotony, as former Order and Resistance alike breakfested together as if they had never been on opposite sides of a galaxy wide war. When had this all changed? It felt as if time itself had fractured into a spiderweb of tangential stories, and now that they were all converging, Poe realized he had been too absorbed in his own thread to notice the rest.

But the sight of _this -_ this melding together of such different peoples…on some scale it was what Poe had always dreamed best for the galaxy. A merging of people and cultures, enemies become friends. Poe could not stop the warmth that consumed him, and for a breath he existed in this moment, where he could glimpse something good beyond the fold of his cards, where life played out with a different hand. And it occurred to him, quite suddenly and forcefully, that he knew exactly who could maybe provide some semblance of comfort.

The only other person Poe knew who would truly understand.

Phasma’s too blond head rose above the gathered people, even as hunched as she still was, right where Poe had seen her earlier that morning, when he had first felt compelled to seek her out. She was no longer alone. Dopheld Mitaka sat across from her, the two huddled together over some secret thing on the table between them. And as Poe made his way through mess, heading straight for their table, it occurred to Poe that he might not be welcome here, that this was a privacy he should respect; Poe had never been a private person, and he decided he wasn’t about to start now.

Not that any of it mattered, because when Phasma saw him, Poe knew coming here had been the right choice.

“ _Dameron_ , thank the _stars_.” Poe almost squeaked when Phasma pushed away from the table to greet him with a hard clap to the shoulder. An embrace, or as close to one as Phasma would allow. Poe stumbled under the force of it, let himself be manhandled into a seat beside Mitaka. The faded orange plasti was warm, heated by the bright sunlight that flooded through the window the table butted up against. Poe sat down, silent with gratitude.

“Hey, uh, how’s it going?” His face grew as warm as the chair when Phasma and Mitaka both stared at him with the attention of a pair of heat seeking torpedos. The thing on the table between them was Phasma’s datapad, open to _Force_ , Hux’s message glowing idle on the screen.

“You’re going to tell us _everything_.” Phasma demanded, and Poe didn’t even think to disobey.

When he was finished, to say the mood had changed would be an understatement.

But at least Poe didn’t feel quite so alone, anymore.

“Armitage you stubborn fucking cunt.” Phasma eventually muttered aloud, long after the silence that befouled the table had grown stale. She had produced a knife from nowhere, begun digging a gouge into the plasti-top, as nervous with tension as Poe himself felt. He almost laughed, bit his lip instead.

“Things will turn out alright, Sir. You’ll see.” Mitaka’s perspective was surprisingly, _bizarrely,_ positive. “If I may say, Sir, I am glad the General has you on his side.”

Poe was struck down by the words, brought low by their insinuation. Of all the things he’d shared, he’d kept his guilt a secret. And he wondered if this was how the whole of the Order felt - if _hope_ had bloomed bright in the dark of their circumstances, all because the Resistance had offered them some half-made promise of protection they had no ability to follow through on.

It wasn’t just Armitage’s safety that was in flux here, but the safety of every Order person in this room, on this base.

In the galaxy.

Poe considered the men and women filling the tables beyond with a newfound regard. The Order had stirred from their subterranean hovel, congregating en mass, a sentient shifting conversation sweeping through them, as much words as emotion. Poe observed from the outside in, like a keeper observing his hive.

The ridiculous idea that Armitage was their queen abandoned him as quickly as it surfaced.

But, of all the changes across the base over the recent weeks, Armitage’s acceptance of him had inspired a sort of begrudging respect from the Order. What had been awkward before was now simply strange. Because he was not blind to the glances directed his way. He noted the approving satisfaction in the faces, understood the comfort his presence amongst the Order elite must inspire.

 _Comrades._ Leia had called them weeks ago, now Poe understood exactly what that meant, what more they had become.

_Allies._

The three sat there, together, their silence ballooned with unspoken thoughts. Phasma’s face was hard drawn, her eyes icy, and Poe could almost imagine the plans shifting around her militaristic mind. Mitaka was easier to read, curiously open, his affection for Armitage obvious, evident in the way he watched Poe closely, concern so plain as to nearly feel overwhelming. Poe could not deny the empathy he shared with Mitaka, something that took him as much by surprise as the idea that this was the man Armitage had put in charge of Finalizer in his absence, this shockingly sensitive idealist who wore his emotions on his sleeve as surely as anyone in the Resistance might.

But before Poe could say as much, his datapad lit with an incoming message.

Poe’s breath caught in his chest, before spilling out a long sigh with considerable disregard of company he kept.

_Your man is fine. ETA 10 minutes. Meet us if you can._

Poe read the message twice before understanding hit. He read it a third time just to be sure. Only after the forth did he allow relief to finally settle in.

“He’s okay.” Poe said the words out loud, as if giving them form solidified their reality.

“Of course he’s okay.” The gouge Phasma had been digging into the table had become a furrow, the plasti peeled back in tiny twirling curls. “I was more worried about the other guy.”

“Fineas Ofant.” Mitaka supplied, a hint of something in his voice Poe felt reflected in himself.

As if any of them had forgotten his name.

The mechanical _whir_ of a droid walking by jolted Poe from his thoughts, and he froze, lifted his eyes, caught how the droid watched him. How it watched _them_.

Poe looked into the camera, and he did not smile.

-

The too tight straps of the safety harness dug painfully into his body. Hux had not bothered loosening them when he’d buckled himself into his seat aboard the transport, had in fact welcomed the feel of pressure holding him secure; Where Hux felt like coming apart, the harness held him together. Now, he traced the stretch of the nylon where it passed over his hips, bare thumb smoothing over the warm metal of the clasp, considering why he had bothered with the harness in the first place. Certainly death by transport crash would be preferable to whatever method the New Republic deemed justice for _Starkiller’s_ execution.

But if he died now, he would not get to see Poe again. And Hux desperately wanted to see Poe again.

Twenty more minutes. Twenty more minutes and then Hux would be back with Poe. And even if he wasn’t okay, Poe would tell him he was, and Hux would let himself believe it.

Finn and Tico had spoken privately after Finn’s arrival at the uplink station. If Hux’s puffy eyes and pink face had not given him away, Tico surely had. And though the two stood in the shade of the transport several yards away, snippets of their conversation had reached him. Hux heard the words _breakdown_ , _Ofant_ , and _Poe._ Though, it wasn’t their words that unnerved Hux, but the quick looks Finn had thrown his way. Hux didn’t think it was pity that he saw in Finn, but there was something telling behind his inscrutable gaze. Something familiar Hux could not quite place, as if Finn himself were shrouded in bokeh and Hux had not the correct lens to bring him into focus.

And when Tico had opted to pilot them back to the base and Finn had sat himself in the seat across from Hux, that same unnamed expression plain on his face, Hux had turned away. He had found it easier to stare listless at the shifting shadows at the back of the transport, counting the seconds to the minute; begrudging that time decided to creep so slowly _now_ when Hux needed it the least.

He had filled that time with thoughts of Poe, loosing himself to pleasant memories even as they did nothing but make time amble along all the more slowly.

Hux had not died, not yet, but thinking about Poe, thinking about how he would see him again so soon, felt like coming alive.

Now, Finn’s eyes had still not left him, and Hux imagined he could see _everything_.

He also realized he really didn’t care.

Silence pervaded the transport. The hum of the stabilizers drowned out the sound of his breath, and the quiet groan of metal against metal distracted Hux from the sound of his thoughts. But it was Finn’s continued attention that was loudest to Hux. Gone was the inscrutable look, replaced with something far more confusing. Silence did not suit Finn well, because Hux could tell he had something to say - was building himself up to it. But instead of speaking Finn had opted to watch Hux, as if he’d find the answers to his questions scrawled across Hux’s skin, burned into his flesh.

Hux understood what he was to this man. He understood now more than he ever could have before. Certainly not when they both walked the halls of the Finalizer, and less certainly after Finn’s own defection - something that, at the time, had been entirely out of Hux’s scope of comprehension. Hux also knew that Finn and Poe were close in a way that went beyond a mere casual friendship. Poe had not spoken much of Finn, but Hux had not needed words to pick up on the subtleties of their relationship. This was a man Poe respected, a man Poe found kinship with. If Hux thought his future with Poe would span longer than several more days or shortened weeks, he would have made an effort to engage Finn’s curiosity in him.

Maybe would have considered an apology.

Instead, when the silence became nearly as stifling as the heat inside the transport, Hux lifted his eyes and met Finn’s stare.

Finn was sprawled across his seat, unharnessed and comfortably at ease even as the transport shook and bounced. But it was his darkened eyes that nearly arrested Hux, because held in them was a scrutiny that went beyond the hatred and animosity that Hux expected of this former stormtrooper defector. And as their eyes met, Finn, finally, broke the silence.

“Can I- I’ve got to _ask_ ,” And Hux thought it was frustration that colored his voice. “Why did you really do it? Spy, I mean. Was it really because you hated Kylo Ren that much?”

The transport jolted with a groan, would have unseated Hux if he had not been so tightly strapped into his seat. “Does it matter, now?” Hux heard how soft his voice sounded, emotion tempered beneath the steel of nerves.

Finn shrugged, dark eyes holding his, “Not really, but call me curious. You saved our lives, after all.”

Hux would be lying if he said defeating Ren was the reason he turned spy. Because defeating Ren had only ever been for the sake of saving the First Order. And just like so many other aspects of his life, Hux understood now what he never did before. His faith in Order ideals had always been founded in his interpretation of them, and his vision for the Order had always been influenced by his naivety that he would one day lead it. Kylo Ren’s ascension to Supreme Leader had rendered dream from reality.

The Sith fleet, however, had turned reality to nightmare.

“Ren would have been the Order’s ruin, but I saved your lives because Palpatine would have been the Galaxy’s. If anyone was going to defeat the Sith fleet, it was the Resistance.” Hux wondered, not for the first time, if anyone besides himself and Rae Sloane had ever actually cared about the Order. Certainly, Ren never did, and more certainly neither did Sheev Palpatine.

“So you did it to save the Order.” Finn’s voice darkened. If Hux’s interrogation with the Senators had been difficult, this line of questioning with Finn felt impossible.

“I thought I could save the Order from Ren, yes. But Palpatine made it clear that the Order was never going to serve any of us, not in the way I always believed it would, or had the potential to.”

“You mean had you become Supreme Leader.”

Hux swallowed, chose his words carefully, “I had plans, but they were based on a version of the First Order that never truly existed. I- I understand now, why you defected.”

That seemed to give Finn pause, but only for a moment. Then he shook his head, eyes narrowed on him again, putting together pieces to a puzzle Hux already knew didn’t fit. “I want to believe you. I do. But you were our General, you were _Starkiller,_ you expect me to believe you were as fooled as the rest of us?”

Hux could not keep the heat from his voice, “The Order was built on the backs of our generation, but it was the Imperial fathers that shaped it. You never knew Enric Pryde. You never knew Brendol Hux.”

“Brendol Hux, your _father_ , who stole me from my family when I was only a kid? Just like all the kids you stole when you took over the Academy? Yeah, I think I know what I need to, and I just don’t see how he could have been much different from _you_.”

Hux looked away. His pride had protected him from far more than one former trooper’s honesty, but here, with Finn, it abandoned him. Hux heard his words rang true, sick with the idea that he was anything like his father, but unable to separate himself from the reality that despite whatever Hux wanted, the man would forever be a part of him. A hollow ache touched the deepest parts of him, parts of himself he knew his father had shaped, molded in his image and set to cure.

But Finn wasn’t the only victim of his father in this transport. _I was too_. A truth that was as difficult to acknowledge as it was to admit aloud, but Hux thought he needed to, and not just for Finn.

“He took me too.” The words dragged out of him, words that had simmered near his surface for as long as he could remember. Such simple things that brokered far more than the story they told, the childhood that had been stolen.

“What?” Finn snapped, voice brittle, as brittle as Hux felt.

“From my mother, when I was five.” Hux didn’t know why he was telling Finn this. He didn’t know why he thought it mattered.

By the look on Finn’s face he appeared just as bewildered.

“I- I didn’t know.” Finn’s voice quieted, still harsh, but the edge of his words worn thin. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s quite alright.” Hux turned the words out, withered and worn.

A new silence filled the transport, one that barely drowned out the sound of Finn’s thoughts. Hux left him to them, knew he had no place in them, despite what room his memories seemed to take.

But Finn was not a person silence suited, as Hux continued to discover.

“I never thanked you. You know, for keeping Chewy safe, for saving our lives. We owe you a lot.” Finn eventually said, as the light slotted through the window in too bright shards. “You saved our butts, saved the galaxy’s butt. I mean it. Thank you, Hux.”

“You’re welcome.” Hux met Finn’s eyes, saw the truth of his words reflected in his face, hoped his own conveyed even a fraction of what he felt. “And- and I am sorry, Finn. For what it’s worth.”

“Fuck.” Finn pushed out a sigh, posture breaking again as he leaned over his knees and dropped his head into his hands. “This is just too fucking weird.”

And Hux watched, as the former trooper FN-2187 came to a decision, one Hux suspected was less for either of them, and more for the man that they both held dear, the man who had shown both of them that there was always a better way.

“And I know you’re different. At least, you’ve got to be, to have charmed Poe.”

“Is that what I’ve done? Charmed him?” Hux said slowly, maneuvering around this new version of Finn that sat across from him, one that offered a tentative truce in the form of an acknowledgment - an acknowledgment of his relationship to Poe.

“Maybe. But this _is_ Poe, so I guess it’s more likely he charmed you.” Unbalanced by Finn’s words, Hux stared, considering, because it sounded like he had made a joke. Was it a joke? Was Finn _joking_ with him?

Hux licked his lips, inclined his head, and chanced- “Like I said, I understand now why you defected.”

Finn looked at him as if Hux had sprouted not just two heads, but three.

And then he _laughed_ , a little too loud and a little too sudden, and Hux almost smiled. He held it in, dropped his head to stare at his lap, hiding his own amusement behind the fall of his hair. Finn’s laugh echoed through the transport, echoed through his head.

-

Poe heard the approach of the transport before he saw it.

Morning was advancing to midday and with it the sun beat down from a cloudless blue sky. Nature had reclaimed most of the duracrete pad that served as the base’s small vehicle loading area, turning it into a churned up mess of stone and soil, like a rocky sea caught frozen in the ice of time. But where the poured stone still held, heat wavered in a shifting dance. The day was going to be especially hot, and Poe could already feel moisture gathering under his arms and across his chest. He was glad for the distraction. More glad that the glaring sun kept the New Republic’s droid at a distance.

Ten minutes had passed since he’d left Phasma and Mitaka in the mess hall, ten minutes since Finn’s message had illuminated on his screen, a beacon in the choppy sea of Poe’s heart. Phasma had offered to wait with him, and Poe had almost welcomed the company. But, in the end, he decided that what he really wanted was to get Armitage alone. Or, as alone as he could manage. The droid that recorded him from the shade of the base offered a different perspective, one Poe was determined to shake.

If Poe couldn’t steal Armitage away to safety, he could at least steal him away from the watchful eyes of the New Republic.

The rumbling hum of the transport was a distant sound, muffled by the big leafy palms, disbursed across the landing pad in a scattered obscurity. But Poe recognized it, has been waiting for it. And as he took a step forward, squinting into the tree line where he thought the vehicle would emerge, it took everything in him not to sprint across the pad and into the jungle, not yet. Instead he pushed his hair from his brow, then shielded his eyes, his foot tapping out an uneven rhythm as his nerves lit with anxious energy.

When the transport finally breached the tree line, Poe shot from his spot like a bullet from a slug thrower.

He ran across the pad, cleared the distance and kept going. Through the tall grass and over the softened loam where soil turned to swamp, Poe ran. Legs pumping, heart throbbing, he ran and he ran. He ran like he was running from something, and maybe he was, Poe thought. Maybe in some marked way he was running from a life that had betrayed him. Maybe if he ran fast enough, long enough, he could outrun the shadowed pass of fate’s hand. And if he could only take Armitage with him, he could save them both. Like he had on the Steadfast, when death had hunted them; Armitage begging and pleading to be left to die, and Poe refusing. Adamant that Armitage _live_ , resolute in the idea he had something to live for.

Poe hadn’t understood then, what was so clear now,

Something inside Poe released, spilled free with the exertion of his body, something like adrenaline but so much stronger - a force of will Poe thought he could only experience when flying. He felt it now, as he chased the transport down. Felt it even more when the vehicle came to a stop before him. Felt it nearly burst out of him as Rose waved from behind the plexiglass shielding, the door to the cargo compartment already slowly lifting open.

Armitage was back. Armitage was _in there._

Armitage was _safe_.

Finn appeared in the threshold before Poe could launch himself through. He stumbled to a halt, barely breaking his momentum from propelling him straight into Finn’s chest.

“Whoa, _whoa,_ Poe, what’s wrong? Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine, I’m fine. Is Armi- Hux- can I- _shit,_ Finn, I’m sorry.” Poe rocked back on his heels, pushed his hand through his hair, his breath ragged, his smile broken, his lines drawn thin.

Finn leaned out of the door, made a show up looking Poe up and down before letting a grin split his face, “Stars, Poe, you’re in worse shape than him.”

Poe tried to laugh, but the sound lodged in his chest.

“Just let him inside Finn.” Rose’s head hung out the pilot’s side window, her small hand swatting at Finn playfully. “Before he pops, doesn’t he look like he might actually pop?”

“Pop? Not gonna- you two are the _worst_.”

They were the _best_ , because they had brought Armitage home _safe_.

There was a softness to Finn’s swiftly shifting expressions, amusement giving way to affection, before settling on concern. It was the concern that drove Poe to ask, “You okay?”

“Am _I_ okay?” Finn laughed, then quickly sobered. Finn’s hand reached out to grip the back of Poe’s neck with a strength that demanded his full attention. He pulled Poe so close that his words could not be missed over the idle thrum of the transport’s engine. “You know you can come to me for help, don’t you? Anything at all, it doesn’t matter. You know that right?”

“Yeah?” How Poe managed a response at all, he would never know, because his heart was beating too fast, too hard, and far too full.

“ _Poe_.” Finn demanded again, and Poe could not look away. “Me, Rose, Rey, we’re all on your side. We’re gonna help you- help you _both_. Okay? So stop worrying. We’ve got this.”

Poe looked from Rose to Finn and back again, suddenly overwhelmed with love for his friends - two people who had every reason to despise the man they harbored, but who chose empathy over hate. And unlike the Senate or Kes or the whole of the Galaxy, these people had not needed _convincing_. They trusted Poe, trusted his heart, trusted his faith that Armitage Hux was more than _Starkiller_. That he was worth so much more than his mistakes. Poe bit his lip, sucked in a breath, and then his heart burst out, “ _Thank you_.” His voice broke, “Thank you _both_. For everything, for this, for- for keeping Armitage _safe._ ”

“Okay Poe, _okay_ , wait _don’t-_ ” But Poe pulled Finn down into a hug anyway, let him stumble into him so Poe could grip him tighter, smiled as Finn stiffened and then softened, heard Rose’s laugh twinkle over the sound of the still running engine.

“Thanks bud.” Poe whispered, as he felt Finn return his hug.

“Yeah yeah,” Finn quietly sighed, arms squeezing Poe tight, “You still owe me big time.”

“I know, I know I do.” Poe breathed. They stayed like that, long seconds ticking by. Finn’s body was a familiar anchor, one that reminded Poe of all the shit odds they had overcome together. All their fleeting victories and daring rescues and luck lorn escapes. And as distant as he and his friends might have grown over the last several weeks, he understood that nothing had changed, not really, not in the fundamental ways that mattered most.

Suddenly, Poe didn’t feel quite so alone, anymore. It wasn’t him versus the Senate, it was him and his friends, and they had faced down far more dire threats than anything the New Republic could craft.

It was Finn who broke the embrace, his arms pushing Poe to length while giving his shoulders a squeeze. Poe looked from Finn to Rose and back, saw their genuine smiles, their eyes full of an emotion Poe knew was reflected in his own. Poe held onto _this_ feeling, the feeling that almost convinced him everything was going to be okay.

“Get in Poe, I’m gonna bring us around to the dormitories, drop you off there.” Open disgust plain on her face, Rose gestured across the landing pad to where the droid had finally decided to approach, its shadow cast dark beneath the too bright sun, “I don’t want to see another one of those droids if I don’t have to.”

“Yeah, okay. The dorms are fine.” It would take more time to get to the dorm side of the building, the transport having to cut back into the jungle and track along the swamp to the south east.

But what was a little more time, when Poe could spend it with Armitage?

“I’ll ride up front, give you some privacy.” Finn said it as if he were relieved, and Poe almost grinned. What would Armitage and Finn have talked about for forty minutes? If only he could have been a fly on the wall for _that_ conversation. “Oh, and Poe?” Finn leaned in close, his smirk dark with mirth, “I think he’s stuck.”

“What?” But Finn had already taken off, Poe left alone, nothing between him and the inside of the transport, where Armitage was - _What am I waiting for?_

Poe reached up and pulled himself inside.

The transport was dark, the change in light so abrupt that Poe was almost blinded, but maybe that was just his excuse for why he stood there, frozen, staring at Armitage as if he were a mirage that might fade from his sight. Armitage was no mirage. Instead he stood out like a beacon in a storm, all pale skin and refracted light and a burning fiery halo of gold, and Poe would have dashed himself across his rocky shore if it meant he could get all that closer.

“Hey.” Poe knew his grin was dopey, heard how his voice dripped.

“Hello, Poe.” Armitage’s voice washed through him, real and there and sweeping him up and away in a tidal wave of relief.

Poe was on him within the span of a heartbeat.

He slid into the seat beside Armitage just as the transport shuddered into motion. Armitage’s eyes glinted translucent in the sharp light of the sun, red tinged against gray-green, color where color should not be, and Poe knew then he had been crying. _What happened out there?_ He wanted to ask, but didn’t. Instead, he touched his fingers to Armitage’s cheek, ignored the bits of sand he found there, his thumb resting over the red bow of his mouth. Poe watched it part, felt the warmth of his breath as it spilled past his teeth. And Poe saw when his face softened, almost imperceptible, a shifting of muscle that said so much more than any furrow or frown.

Poe watched as Armitage undid himself, peeling back his own layers, revealing himself piece by piece, until all that was left was a man Poe didn’t think anyone else would recognize. Poe couldn’t stop himself from replacing his thumb with his lips, then; soft and tender and spilling over with all the emotion Poe could not help but feel.

The kiss could hardly be called as much, too light and too fleeting to be anything more than a suggestion. But Poe felt overwhelmed by it all the same. His heart pounded as Armitage’s lips moved against his, hand coming to rest alongside Poe’s face, cool palm clammy where it pressed into his cheek. Is that why he always wore gloves? Poe wondered as he reached up and folded his hand over Armitage’s, held it there, soothed lines along the fleshy place where thumb met palm.

“Missed you.” Poe murmured against Armitage’s lips, love struck and punch drunk. But by the way Armitage leaned into him, Poe didn’t think he minded.

“I’m glad to be back.” Armitage spoke so softly the sound was nearly drowned out by the hum of transport. “I was not expecting Ofant to be there.”

“None of us were.” Poe drew away, but only far enough to observe the distance in Armitage’s eyes, lost in memories Poe was not privy to. The hand on Poe’s cheek had begun to slip. Poe twined there fingers together and brought their hands to his lips. “I’m never leaving you alone again. I won’t let him near you.”

“He wanted to make sure I knew who had won.” Armitage’s voice had lowered, cadence shadowed, over-ripened words snipped from a dying vine. “He already has what he wants.”

“No he doesn’t.” The force of which Poe said those words was not intentional, but they felt genuine, natural. They felt like the _truth_. _Don’t give up hope, Poe. Don’t let him give up hope._ Leia’s words were a constant in his mind, a call to action Poe could not ignore. “The Senate is undecided. Maybe Ofant isn’t, but the rest of them are.”

Armitage went still, walls flying back up far quicker than they ever came down. Poe imagined he was looking at a holo on pause, Armitage all placid-faced and straight-lined, eyes empty where they drifted off over Poe’s shoulder to stare at a place Poe could not see. Poe’s stomach twisted, his heart throbbed.

Poe squeezed Armitage’s hand, suddenly needing a reaction - something, _anything_ besides this deadened _nothing_.

The transport hit a bump, groaning as it abruptly listed to the side, the air brakes snapping them back in a rubberband reaction. Poe caught himself before he was unseated, but Armitage hadn’t moved an inch, in fact sat frozen where he was, strapped so tightly into his harness Poe suddenly wondered how he was breathing. But his eyes were back on Poe, white-edged and honed sharp, holding Poe to an explanation he had barely provided.

“They’re undecided,” Armitage said the words carefully, as if he was tasting their meaning, palating their worth, “What did you tell them?”

Poe swallowed, wet his lips, “I- I told them everything.”

“Everything?” As Armitage held Poe’s eyes, Poe also watched him hold himself together.

“They didn’t want to talk about the Academy. They wanted to talk about you.”

Armitage’s face flickered, too quick for Poe to recognize the emotion. Silence filled the vacuum of Poe’s thoughts, and when Armitage’s words came, they lacked the lilt of a question. “You told them everything about me.”

“I told them everything about _us_.” Poe felt exposed, but he didn’t feel ashamed. “Are you mad at me?”

Armitage searched his face, searched for _something,_ eyes flitting over him, brushes of attention that left sparks on Poe’s skin. “No. Should I be? What did you say?”

_That I love you._

Poe opened his mouth, closed it, couldn’t stop the blush from blooming across his chest and cheeks.

“Was Organa there?” Armitage _demanded_ now, eyes latched onto his, sparks turned to arcing tethers.

Poe knew he’d been caught, but in what, he could not say, “Yeah, she was there.”

When Poe noticed Armitage’s shortened breath, saw the rapid beat of his pulse beneath the thin skin of his neck, how his pupils had swallowed his irises whole, he knew he was missing something critical.

Because Armitage was completely _undone_ beneath the hold of his harness.

“Get me out of this thing,” he whispered, and Poe could only leap to obey.

Poe’s hands flew over the harness. Suddenly, Finn’s words made complete sense. Armitage was strapped so tightly into his safety harness that he couldn’t get any leverage to unbuckle himself. He was _stuck._ And as Poe slipped his fingers under the nylon he nearly laughed. “Hugs, what have you done?”

“Just fix it, Dameron.” Armitage sounded breathless in a way that had nothing to do with panic or fear. And as Poe’s fingers hooked over the strap across Armitage’s hips, he felt the heat roll off his skin, felt how his belly pressed into the tips of his fingers, so soft and delicate and fluttering with his breath. Poe had been here once before. Had savored the sensation then as he did again now. Wanted to bury himself in it. Would have stripped Armitage of far more than the harness if he didn’t know his friends could interrupt them at any moment. Instead he bit his lip and met Armitage’s eyes, held them as his fingertips dragged lightly over the place where the strap pressed into Armitage’s body.

Watched as Armitage’s lashes dropped flutter light atop his cheeks - briefly - the barest moment of weakness. A weakness wrought of something as simple as Poe’s _touch_.

“I’ve got you.” Voice low, suggestive, “I’ll save you from the big bad safety harness.”

Armitage rasped out a laugh, genuine with an honesty that made Poe feel like he was soaring. Poe matched the sound with his own, and suddenly, everything else fell aside. The fog lifted to reveal not a rocky cliff side, but a calm shore. Maybe everything _would_ be okay, maybe his luck had not run out, maybe all they needed was a little _hope_.

And each other. They needed each other. Together they would face this.

His fingers found the clasp, disengaged the mechanism. The harness released with a quiet snick, straps loosening enough that Armitage could slide his way free.

Slide right into Poe’s arms.

Just as the transport jolted over another bump.

They hit the floor with a muffled thump, Poe’s arms catching on Armitage where he landed in his lap. Armitage was all lean limbs and soft planes pressing close with an intention that caught Poe more by surprise than his fall. Poe sucked in a breath, lost it all over again when his eyes lifted to see Armitage above him, staring down with such obvious affection that Poe very nearly hoisted him over his shoulder and ran off with him for the second time in their lives.

At a complete loss for words, Poe said stupidly, “Heya.”

Armitage’s mouth twisted, broke, spilled out a _smile_. It wasn’t whole, it was barely held together, but it was there, under Armitage’s cracked surface as surely as all the grief and fear Poe knew him to be hiding. Poe wanted to draw it out, know its form, taste its shape, keep it safe. He wanted to keep Armitage safe, he was _going_ to keep him safe.

Armitage was shaking, a fine tremble he tried to hide in the press of his hands alongside Poe’s neck. And as Poe pulled him closer, he felt how the shaking converged into a shuddering breath, a bitten lip, a soft sound lodged in the back of Armitage’s throat - words, Poe suspected. Words he thought the knew the form of. Words he himself had confessed but hours ago, admitted to all the people who didn’t matter, when the person who needed to hear them the most was out of his reach.

But Armitage was _here_ , and Poe thought he could tell him now.

“Armitage,” Poe whispered his name, a request he needn't make, because Armitage’s attention had never left him. His hands lifted from Armitage’s sides, cupped his face. “Armitage, I-”

“I heard you,” Armitage breathed. “I could _hear_ you,” He repeated, even as his voice broke over his words. And it struck Poe then, what he meant, just _what_ he had heard. Poe’s breath staggered, released, then held as he watched Armitage work through himself. Saw the shifting cogs of his thoughts, the flux of emotion across his face; all the tiny microshifts in his expression as he finally put words to the feelings Poe knew were there, had been there, waiting in the quiet. “I love you too. I love you. I love you so dearly.”

Poe had spent the last day running from something he could not escape. And no matter how fast he ran or what path he took, he always ended up at the same place, a nowhere that led to nothing, an absolute of an ending.

But this, _this_ felt like a beginning.

Poe was crying, he was smiling, he was _happy_ , despite whatever loomed on the not so distant horizon.

“I love you, Poe,” Armitage said again, barely above a whisper. Armitage’s fingers curled along Poe’s neck, eyes following the fall of Poe’s tears as his own gathered glassy and wet, breath hitching and body shaking. Poe stroked Armitage’s cheeks with his thumbs, held him steady as he fractured apart. 

“I love you too, Armitage.”

And when Armitage’s tears finally fell Poe gathered them with his thumbs, collected them in his palms, and dried his cheeks with his kiss.

-

The door to their quarters sealed shut with a gentle _whoosh_. The low pitched whine of the electronic lock softer still. But it was the near silent sound of Poe’s breath that drummed a rhythm out of the quiet when Poe pushed him into the wall.

Hux imagined that most people who were pushed into walls got there under much more forceful circumstances. Poe was entirely gentle about it, methodical in the way he maneuvered Hux against the durasteel behind him. His hands cupped Hux’s face, fingers spread wide over his jaw, thumbs at the corners of his mouth, holding Hux still as he pressed slow lingering kisses across his face: his nose, his cheeks, his chin, his brow.

Hux could still taste the tears on Poe’s skin, dried tracks of salt that were an assiduous reminder of what had prompted _this_ \- this overwhelming compulsion to consume one another - to know each other as intimately as their words in the transport suggested they already should.

 _I love you_. The words repeated themselves, in Poe’s kiss, in his touch. Hux tried to say the same, tried to push them into Poe through the press of his palms, the brush of his lips. Imagined he could paint them across the canvas of Poe’s skin, if only he could get his shirt off.

Instead, Poe’s hips pressed against his, unmoving but firm, as he slotted his thigh between Hux’s legs just how he liked; low enough that it was snug against the seat of his testicles. It drove Hux mindless, the feel of it, of how he could choose to sink down and find that pressure reaching even further back, into his cleft, maddening Hux with the suggestion of it all.

So, Hux hoped Poe could hear the words in the way he ground down into his thigh, in the way he sought the closeness of Poe’s body, the deep ache of his pleasure, the shiver of his body beneath Poe’s hands.

Poe held him steady as he unfurled. Caught his gasps in his mouth, encouraged him with little murmurs of _that’s it, go on, just like that._ And soon enough Hux could barely hold himself upright, not when Poe was pressed so close that he didn’t even have to.

But it wasn’t until Hux buried his hands in Poe’s inky black hair that Hux suspected Poe heard him. Because Poe _moaned_ into Hux’s mouth, hot and breathy, as Hux wound his fingers into loose curls, tugging and dragging across Poe’s scalp, tipping his head back so he could cover Poe’s mouth with his own. They were not quite kissing, couldn’t find the coordination, not when Poe’s hands were now too busy hoisting Hux up onto his thigh by the seat of his pants - not when Hux was too consumed by the length of Poe’s cock running hot and heavy alongside his own.

Here, under Poe’s hands, Hux couldn’t think of all the things in his life that had gone wrong; He forgot the sound of Ofant’s voice in his ear, forgot the blackened scar of the Finalizer against the horizon, forgot that his life was no longer his to live, but his to give, in the few ways that were still left to him.

He’d already decided he would give himself to Poe, at least in this.

“Wanna fuck you,” Poe murmured as his mouth found Hux’s ear and his fingers curled brazenly along his cleft. “Wanna be inside you, fill you up, make you come on my cock. Wanna _wreck_ you.”

Poe’s words took Hux by storm, sweeping him into a frenetic need that seated in the base of his spine where it coiled tight. Hux shook with it, trembled under the press of Poe’s fingers, imagined how they must trace the fissured cracks that surely now patterned his skin.

“Fuck- _ah_ \- _Poe-_ ” Hux’s head hit the wall in the way his back probably should have when they first started this. Bearing his weight into his shoulders, Hux shifted his hips forward, lifted up, _dragged_ his erection against Poe’s in small slow grinds. Poe moaned, long and low, hands guiding his hips, mouth to his throat, finding the pulse point at the base and tonguing over it. Hux knew he was making noises, but Poe’s were just so much louder in his ears.

They picked a path that led them into the bedroom, hands never leaving the other, mouths finding what skin they could, pulses spilling through their surfaces as their hearts thundered a matching rhythm.

Poe’s bedroom was a simple space. Clean, if not a little cluttered. There was a table piled with blaster parts and tools in the corner, a matching chair which looked like it had never been used for sitting stacked with a rifle case and a box of droid parts next to it. Hux did not see a dresser, but there was a series of hooks along the far wall, strung with what Hux recognized as Poe’s leather jacket and a handful of utility belts. And then there was the half-domed window, arching high, gold tinted light spilling over a bed that seemed far too large for a hobbled together militia base.

The bed was made, blankets tucked neatly into the corners, pillows arranged simply across the top edge. And even as Poe’s mouth sucked a gentle pressure into his throat, Hux was suddenly consumed by the absurd thought that they couldn’t do _this,_ because that would mean they’d have to mess up the bed, and that was just unacceptable.

Poe caught onto his hesitation in a way Hux could never explain. His hands left Hux’s hips, tangled instead with his hands, his head lifting from where it worried at his neck, and Poe asked “You okay?” as he pulled Hux all that much closer. “We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with, we don’t have to do _anything_ at all.”

“I want to, I want this.” The words rushed out of him faster than Hux could think. But they were true, he wanted this, had been looking forward to it for as long as he could remember looking forward to anything at all. Hux closed what distance was left, pressed into Poe so their hands were caught between their chests, their hips touching, his erection hard against the warm flesh of Poe’s stomach.

Poe’s free hand touch his cheek, drew him down so he could brush their lips together, “You seem nervous.” Poe was unrelenting with his comfort, and for that Hux would always be grateful.

“I am,” He admitted, because it was the truth and because his brain had not quite caught up with the rest of his anatomy yet. Heat bloomed hot across his nose at Poe’s smile, as if Hux’s inexperience was something to be cherished, which should have made Hux _mad,_ except he couldn’t be when Poe’s lips were so gentle against his.

He _was_ nervous, though, and Hux didn’t get _nervous_. If he’d been the same person he had been weeks ago, he might have already called this all off. Hux did not care to have his boundaries pushed. Had in fact always gone out of his way to craft things to his own comfort, finding safety in the predictability of a life wrought of routines.

They had been intimate, and it had been intensely pleasurable, but Hux had not yet felt quite so intimidated as he did now. He was not sure if it was a prudish mental barrier that caused the tumultuous feeling in his stomach, or something as simple as nerves.

Sex was an aberration, but one Hux was desperate to make an exception for, if he could have it with Poe.

“Come here.” Poe’s voice gentled him, eased him forward, deeper into the room, closer to that bed. And when Poe’s fingers touched his jaw, trailed to his chin, and took him in hand. Hux’s attention was consumed. “This is all about feeling good. If something doesn’t feel right, tell me and we’ll stop, simple as that.”

Poe’s dark eyes held him as tenaciously as his hand, and Hux understood how important it was for Poe to have his consent. “I’ll tell you if I need to stop, if anything does not feel…if something makes me uncomfortable.”

“Good.” Poe’s smile widened, by just a fraction. And then he lifted their joined hands to his lips, pressed a kiss to their tangled fingers.

And then he took a step back, right towards that big bed.

One more step, then another, until Hux had to decide if he was going to follow or not.

“It’s okay. Whatever you want is okay.” Poe said into their still joined hands.

Whatever he wanted?

Hux wanted _Poe_.

He ended up sat on the edge of the bed, Poe knelt at his feet, hands moving over his boots as he tugged them free. They had been here before, not so long ago. A moment in time as different as it was similar, when Poe was Dameron and Hux had been so unsure of who he was, who he was becoming. Somehow, the circle had become full, and as Poe looked up at him with _that_ expression, the same one Hux had once been so distrustful of, he knew that he was on the right path.

Wherever _this_ led him, Hux was sure it was where he was supposed to be. Because he was with Poe, and Hux could no longer imagine his life without Poe.

Poe’s boots came off next, followed by his socks and belt, his datapad removed from a pants pocket. Hux watched as he placed the boots next to his, the belt in its place on a wall hook, his datapad on the table, all with a wink so Hux knew this was just for him.

“Now you can’t accuse me of not being a gentleman about this,” Poe quipped as he climbed onto the bed, and Hux almost laughed. The strain of his erection would have strangled the sound.

“Certainly _gentleman_ is not a word I would ever use to describe you,” Hux said instead, watching until he couldn’t as Poe moved behind him, breath catching when Poe’s hands settled on his shoulders.

“Oh? How would you describe me, then?” Poe’s hands, so firm and so very warm, slowly worked up Hux’s neck. The touch was light, barely brushing, pressure only increasing as Poe’s fingers trailed under his chin, over his jaw, into his hair. They tangled there, gentle and insistent all at once. Hux closed his eyes.

He allowed his head to drop back into those hands, a sigh for an answer. “Scoundrel. Miscreant. Brigand.”

Poe laughed, “Why Hugs, that’s quite the vocabulary.” Poe’s hands were like heaven where they trailed through his hair. and Hux let his mouth part with his breath.

“And rebel scum, of course.” Hux’s smirk small but unhidden.

Poe hummed, the sound as warm as his hands. “Okay, I earned that one at least.” Hux’s smirk deepened, almost turned into a smile, but then Poe’s breath hit his ear, hot and moist and so very close. “But so have you, now.”

Hux _gasped_.

Poe’s laugh shook through Hux, quaking him down to his foundations. And when Poe turned Hux’s face up into a kiss, his gasp turned into a moan.

 _Rebel_. There was no escaping it. Hux knew it to be the truth. Somehow, _this_ was the man he had become. A stranger still, but one Hux wanted to get to know. One he might be proud to be. A name, Hux found, inexplicably, that he was okay being called.

Poe pulled away from the kiss, breath spilling over his lips, and Hux chased after him. But even straining up, Poe remained out of reach. Hux opened his eyes to Poe gazing down at him, so warm and full and completely consumed by what he saw - by _him_. And as Poe’s thumbs smoothed over his cheeks, Hux could not help his shiver.

But it was when Poe murmured, “My rebel spy.” that something inside Hux squeezed free, a small sound, right there, in the back of his throat. Poe hummed in response, voice low, and Hux thought he could almost taste the emotion there, but it was in Poe’s smile that Hux watched it spill free.

Poe looked _happy_. Happy in a way Hux wasn’t sure he could understand, because Hux didn’t think he’d ever been as happy as Poe looked right then. If light were a thing contained by a smile, Poe’s would be blinding. And in that light, Hux felt the warmth of his affection finally collapse the fortifications he had built against things like hope and happiness and love.

Poe loved him, and _he_ loved _Poe._

Hux’s breath hitched, the wet in his eyes spilling down his cheeks, as he split open for Poe and the love they both had to give.

Poe held him steady as he unfurled. Caught his gasps in his mouth, gasps that sounded so much like sobs. He cradled Hux’s face carefully, so soft and tender, reverent, like Hux was something precious, valuable, worth protecting. Hux opened for him, his mouth parting to let Poe’s tongue touch his. Even in this Poe tread delicately, drinking from Hux in little sips, savoring all the small breathy sounds Hux could not help but make.

Poe’s hand guided him into an angle that exposed Hux’s throat and set his heart racing. There was a trust here, one he knew he’d already given Poe, but felt so much more acute now than it had before. And when a hand curled over his neck, Hux _shivered_. It was not a small sensation, it tore down his spine, taking him by surprise, and he made a sound against Poe’s mouth, fighting the fluttery feeling that compelled him to twist the blanket into his fists.

“Okay?” Poe murmured against Hux’s lips, hand holding his throat. He didn’t stroke, and he didn’t squeeze, but his touch was firm, confident, and Hux’s mind flew off with the feel of it. He couldn’t think, he could hardly breath, and it all felt so _good_.

“It feels good, just like this.” Hux wasn’t sure how he was able to string so many words together.

Poe brushed over his mouth again, a fleeting thing, as his hand maintained its gentled hold. His other hand moved down Hux’s shirt, fingers finding the buttons that had been almost forgotten. “Can I take your shirt off?” Poe’s voice sounded rough when it reached Hux’s ears.

“Yes.” There was no hesitation. As exposed as Hux knew he should feel, he could not help wanting to give Poe more. He suspected he would remain this way until the end, happily handing himself over to whatever request Poe asked of him.

And he trusted Poe, knew Poe would not abuse that trust.

Poe’s fingers made short work of his shirt, moving down his body with each button, his face burrowing into Hux’s neck alongside his hand, at the same spot he had worried earlier. Hux could feel Poe’s mouth there, against his skin, open and wet, teeth a barely veiled pressure, tongue curling circles. Hux would have turned his head, given Poe more room, except the hand at his neck held him steady - held him to Poe - as his mouth tightened into a gentle sucking pulse that mirrored in the throb in Hux’s erection. At some point, Hux’s shirt had been completely removed.

And as Poe pulled him closer and his mouth worked harder and his fingers found a nipple, Hux thought it should not be possible to feel this good _._ Not from this slow worship, because Hux didn’t know what else to call it, didn’t know a person could treat another like this, didn’t think this was normal…thought maybe fate had made a mistake, because surely Hux didn’t deserve _this_ , didn’t deserve _Poe_.

“ _Poe_ ,” Hux whispered, suddenly overwhelmed. He felt how his body trembled, felt how tightly his hands had twisted into the blanket, how wide his legs had parted, how hard his erection throbbed.

How his heart pounded, right there beneath where Poe’s palm now lay.

Poe made a sound against Hux’s neck, teeth dragging lightly before he pulled away to return to his lips. “Hey, you’re okay.” He affirmed, even as the kiss Poe stole from Hux left him shaking even harder. The sensation lingered over Hux’s mouth like a balm, and when Poe whispered, “I love you so much.” He almost broke.

Poe _loved_ him.

Poe _loved_ him, and what Hux had thought was some artificial Force fed comfort, was _real._ Real in the way Hux knew only reality could be, because the pain was still there too, and only ever in Hux’s dreams did the pain fade.

Well, and when Poe had his hands on him.

“I love you, Poe.” Hux let the words spill free, and he thought he could feel those fractured patterns split open all over again under the force of Poe’s kiss.

And then he was being drawn completely onto the bed, and there was not a molecule in Hux’s body that protested. _This_ was exactly where he wanted to be, splayed out on his back atop Poe’s bed, head on his pillow, legs spread where Poe knelt between them, looking up at the man who had forever changed Hux’s life for the better - shown him what it meant to live. And, Hux decided, even if he died within hours or days or weeks, he would be okay, because he at least had been given _this_.

“Stop thinking,” Poe smiled down at him, hands running along the length of Hux’s inner thighs. Hux let his legs fall wider. “I guess I have to find a better way to distract you.”

Hux licked his lips, shifted his hips, watched as Poe’s hands skimmed over the seam that lead to his erection. “By fucking me?”

Poe _laughed_ , and Hux knew he would never forget the sound.

“I will, but not yet,” Poe leaned forward, hands pressing his thighs apart while his weight balanced over Hux. There was a glint to Poe’s dark eyes that caught Hux’s breath in his chest, and when his words came, Hux couldn’t stop the air in his lungs from strangling free in a moan. “I’m gonna take you apart with my fingers first.”

“ _Stars_ -” Hux’s chest hitched. Poe’s grin was wide, teasing, he knew _exactly_ what he was doing, “- _Poe_.”

His pants came off faster than his shirt ever did, his briefs following shortly behind. Hux didn’t even care when Poe dropped them onto the floor, because all he could think about was what Poe’s fingers might be like inside him, how _good_ they were bound to feel.

Except, then Poe went and stripped off his own clothing, and all of Hux’s attention honed into one singular focus.

It was not the first time Hux had seen Poe naked, but there was a newness to him, in the fact that there was now only Poe - no mountains or wind or warm water to distract Hux from the sheer physicality of his body. Poe was all vast planes and sun kissed skin and hair so dark it could be mistaken for shadows. Poe was _beautiful_ , more beautiful than anything Hux had ever seen before. More beautiful than the command deck of a star destroyer, more beautiful than the black nothing of deep space, more beautiful than the most flawless code he had ever written. So beautiful that Hux thought maybe he should feel more self conscious of his own body, except then Hux wouldn’t be able to explain the way Poe’s eyes fired over him as he laid down alongside him.

Poe’s palm, when it touched his hip, was as hot as a furnace.

“Still feeling okay about this?” Poe asked as Hux rolled over to face him. Poe’s hand had not left Hux’s hip.

That was when he noticed the bottle of lubricant laying on the bed between them.

The fluttery sensation from before bloomed back to life in a fury of heat and nerves.

“I want this, Poe. I want you,” He said, a little breathless, even as his voice sounded too loud against the calm quiet of the room. Poe had not stopped smiling at him, his thumb now rubbing circles into his hip.

“I’m gonna make you feel so good.” Poe murmured like he got off on the idea. Like Poe’s pleasure was to be found in the things he could make Hux feel, as selfless as all the other aspects of Poe Hux had come to understand. “Have you ever used your fingers on yourself?”

Hux had, but not in a very long time. “It’s been a while.”

Poe bit his lip as he smiled, scooting a little forward as he did so. And suddenly, Poe was there, close, the light of the room casting long shadows, the two of them curled into one another, sharing something that felt like a secret. “Have you ever come from them? From your fingers, not your cock?”

“A prostate orgasm?” Hux knew it was possible, but had never given it much thought, “You’ve done this?”

“Only to myself, yeah. But I think I can do it to you too. If you’ll let me try.”

 _He’s done this to himself?_ Hux tried to imagine what that would look like: Poe curled onto his bed with his fingers buried inside him, bringing himself off in some phantom orgasm - _orgasms_.

Hux suddenly _wanted_. “What will you- what does it entail?”

“Well,” Poe’s hand left his hip, slipped further back instead, fingers brushing the swell of his glute. “I’ll use my fingers to massage your prostate, from inside you.” Here, his fingers dipped into his cleft, not deeply, but enough to suggest. “With a little time and a bit pressure, you can come from that alone.”

There was a clinical quality to the simple way Poe described what he would do that twisted pleasure into Hux as surely as any dirty talk he’d ever heard. And Hux knew he wanted Poe to do this for him, to him, with him.

A tiny thing inside him came undone, and with it went all of the hesitancy Hux had not realized he still held onto. The pleasure Poe offered, it was so much more than a firing of nerves. It was more of those good things, those memories Poe seemed determined to create with Hux; little glittering points of life in the velvet darkness of Hux’s mind. And it was like Poe thought if he could only give Hux enough, that maybe the light would drown out the darkness, just like his touch drowned out the memory of Ofant.

“What do you need me to do?” He said in a quiet rush.

“Just relax, enjoy it. Don’t worry about coming, it might not happen, but it will feel good regardless.” And then Poe’s eyes darkened even further, as he said, “And it’ll open you up for me, because I’m gonna fuck you after.”

 _Oh stars-_ “Okay.” Hux said, when all he really he wanted was to pry himself open and offer Poe so much more than his fractured cracks.

Instead, he gave Poe his hand, watched as Poe brought it to his lips.

Let his leg be guided over Poe’s hip, where it could comfortably rest.

Shifted himself closer, when Poe’s hand once again reached to brush over his anus.

Poe’s fingers were slicked with lubricant, this time.

“You can close your eyes,” Poe told him, fingertips swirling little circles of pressure over him, easing him open. Hux kept his eyes on Poe’s, thought if he didn’t he might actually fall to pieces.

They gazed at one another as the first of Poe’s fingers breached him.

Hux pressed his lips together against a moan. It had been a long time since he had done anything like this to himself, despite always enjoying the sensations. But Hux imagined even if it had not been so long, Poe’s finger still would have felt just as different. Where Hux’s fingers were long and slender, Poe’s were large and thick, and just one of his felt like so much more than anything Hux could have done to himself. It stretched him in the way he knew he liked. Just as Poe’s thumb had, in the hot spring, and Hux’s breath hitched in his chest as it slid past his first knuckle.

“How does that feel?” Poe’s voice was soft, finger moving in and out of him slowly, so slowly that Hux could feel every little drag of texture on his skin, the extra stretch as Poe’s knuckle edged inside. “Want another?”

“Fine, good, give me a- two, two is fine.” Two was better, Hux decided, when Poe eased a second in alongside the first, stretching him a little wider, moving his fingers a little deeper, the girth of his knuckles sliding not quite easily inside. “ _-Oh_.”

“Good _oh_?” Poe had not stopped moving, and for that Hux was infinitely grateful.

Hux nodded his head, shifted his hips. Said breathlessly, “Good, feels good."

Poe hummed, sliding his fingers a little deeper, but still so slow. Hux shuddered with them, felt when they barely brushed that place inside him, a place that went beyond just feeling good. Suddenly, Hux wanted to know what that would feel like, wanted Poe to show him.

"Three, I can take three.”

“Already?” Poe asked, and Hux nodded, squeezed his hand, met his eyes. Poe said, “Just tell me if it’s too much.”

And when Poe’s third finger nudged up alongside the first two, the tip slipping in and stretching him so much wider, so wide it almost hurt, but didn’t, or did, but in a _good_ way, Hux thought certainly it did not get better than _this_. He moaned.

“That’s three.” Poe’s cadence had dropped, rough over the words, as his third finger found itself fully inside. Poe held still there as Hux adjusted, his thumb rubbing small soothing circles into the tender space behind his testicles, his mouth pressing kisses to Hux’s trembling fingers. Hux breathed through it, into it, savored the involuntary clench of his sphincter, as if trying to draw Poe’s fingers in even deeper. “Tell me when to move.”

“Move,” Hux demanded, as his leg hooked further over Poe’s hip so he could drag himself even closer.

Poe moved his fingers slowly, even slower than before, so careful as the girth of his joined knuckles stretched Hux wider than anything ever before, and slower still as he retreated again, as if he too could savor the stretch. Hux’s eyes finally fell closed. “Still feel okay?”

“ _Yes_.” He wanted Poe to know how good he made him feel, but words were becoming difficult, “Yes, it’s- it’s good.”

“I haven’t even touched your prostate yet.” Poe said like he was amazed, “You like being stretched, huh?”

His erection jerked, a little bit of wet dripping from the tip, even if he wondered if that made him strange. “Y- yes.”

Poe moaned this time, as he shifted forward, as his lips ghost over his. “That’s good. You’re doing so good, Armitage, opening up for me.”

And then his fingers curled into _that_ place inside him, the one that sent sparks arching up his spine.

Hux gasped as his whole body jolted, as if he were caught single handed on a live wire. Poe’s fingers eased off, but not entirely away, instead moving in little pulses as he slid them in and out, dragging over his prostate. The sensation was nearly overwhelming, too much and not enough all at once, and Hux noticed his blood quickening and his breath becoming ever more shallow.

The way his hand clung to Poe’s, so tight he thought it must hurt.

“Relax, breath, you’re doing great,” Poe murmured, and Hux struggled to put mind to action as the whole of his body converged on the singular sensation of Poe’s fingers inside him. But, Poe’s voice spurred him towards pleasure as well as his fingers did, and Hux moaned at the continued sound of it.

“Stars, Armitage, you’re so fucking beautiful, Poe _rasped_ as his fingers curled and Hux gasped again. His fingers pushed deep, digging little furrowed rolls into that place inside him, drawing out not just sensation but sounds, as Hux’s throat caught over the shout it wanted to release. Poe’s eyes burned into him, and Hux had to look away then, lest Poe see too much. So he dropped his eyes to Poe’s mouth instead, watched as it moved over words. Something inside him cracked open with the meaning of them. “I wonder how much prettier you’ll look on my cock.”

“ _Poe-_ ” Hux didn’t know what he wanted to say, didn’t know if he could say anything at all, but something felt like it was trying to escape him, but could not find its way free. Poe’s fingers released him, returning to their slow gentle slide. A frustrated noise lodged in the back of his throat. “Poe, _I need-_ ”

Then his hips chanced a small roll, just as Poe’s fingers curled into him again.

Hux could not stop his strangled _shout_.

“That’s it, move with me, do what you need to.” Poe’s encouragement burned through him, and Hux gasped as Poe’s fingers made quick circles against that spot and a flurry of sparks bombarded him, shivering up his spine.

Hux chased the sensations, his hips moving with Poe’s fingers until they found a rhythm, and he gave himself over to it - gave himself over to Poe.

“Right there, that’s it,” Poe repeated, and then it happened again. The jolt was just as strong, but not as sharp, lingering in his spine in a way it had not before, birthing a shivering tremble at the seat of his pelvis, right where Poe’s fingers worked him. Hux lost his breath to the feeling, so intense and so different, and so so _good_. He panted into the space between them, clutching Poe’s hand, as the sensation consumed him, and his whole body began to shake.

Poe encouraged him on, fingers curling, words relentless.

“Stars, Armitage, I can _feel_ you. I can feel how close you are. You’re right there, you’re going to come. You can do it, you can come. Come on, come, _come for me_.”

Hux came. It crashed over him and into him and through him, a cyclone of sensation that began in his spine and spilled from his skull. Sensation that swept Hux’s consciousness up and away and then dropped him just as abruptly back into his body, his body which had collapsed upon itself, where Hux could not tell up from down, in from out, or the end from his beginning. He was shouting, he was sure of it, but he had no control over the broken sound of his voice, could only listen as it spilled from him, just as the rest of him spilled out, breaking through his cracks, shattering him free.

-

As Poe watched Armitage unfurl before him, he thought surely, he had never seen anything so beautiful in his whole life.

Armitage’s eyes had fluttered closed over flushed cheeks, lashes so delicate that when they caught the filtered sunlight they almost looked like threads of gold. And his mouth, an open bow, parted with the sound of his cry as his body trembled and shook and came apart around the curl of Poe’s fingers inside him. His cock lay half hard over the curve of his thigh, leaking a steady drool of clear fluid, and it took everything inside Poe to not reach out and touch it.

Instead, he dragged his fingers again over that spot inside Armitage. Savored the way his body twitched, his breath hitched, how his eyes slit open to regard him, gray-green blown black and tangled with his pleasure.

The way his hand desperately clutched Poe’s, as if it were all he had left to hold onto.

Poe leaned forward, pressed his lips to Armitage’s, let them linger as the man he loved came apart.

He could probably make Armitage come again, just like this, fingers buried deep, working his prostate until he was a moaning mess. Part of him wanted to. Acknowledged that they had the time, the whole day if they wanted, to lay in bed and explore one another. And maybe they would, later. But, for now, Poe eased Armitage down from his orgasm. Guided him through the aftershocks with a knowing touch, gentle where Armitage’s body was not, lost as it was to the involuntary motions of his pleasure.

When Armitage finally relaxed, when his breathing evened and his body collapsed and when the hold on Poe’s fingers released just enough, he gently slipped them free. Poe left them against the furl of muscle, smoothed slick circles over it, enjoyed the soft little sounds it drew from Armitage’s throat. They were broken and breathy, barely anything at all. Expect on his exhales. Poe could hear the tiny little catches at the back of his throat, as unconscious as they were hushed. Poe had never heard sounds like that from Armitage before, thought they must be evidence of how undone he had become. Of what _Poe_ had made him feel. He could not help his smile.

“How was that?” He finally asked, mostly because he wanted to see how pink Armitage could become. “Feel good?”

But instead of answering, Armitage shuddered in another inhale, lifted his eyes and reached his free hand to curve around the back of Poe’s neck. And as he pulled Poe into a shivering kiss, as another soft moan spilled from him, Poe heard the whisper thrush softness of Armitage’s voice.

“Make love to me, Poe.”

Poe’s smile split into a grin.

Poe pushed forward, opened his mouth to the kiss, tasted Armitage on his tongue. His fingers, still slick, slid up his butt cheek, gripped it hard, hauled him closer. Armitage burrowed into him, until their limbs were as tangled as their hearts, and Poe could not tell where he ended and Armitage began. Didn’t care to, thought they should stay like this forever, the rest of the world be damned.

By the time he managed to maneuver Armitage onto his back, they were both fully hard again.

Armitage’s legs were open, wide where Poe had settled between them, thighs hooked over Poe’s. His chest heaved with his breath, a brush of pink painting his pale skin, so pale that when his skin caught the light Armitage almost looked translucent. Poe imagined he could see everything then, all the things Armitage kept from the world. All the fear and hurt, yes, but also the goodness, the curiously sensitive aspects of his personality that he hid even from himself.

Poe wanted to pull those parts out, see what they might look like drawn across his surface. His palm, when it touched Armitage’s thigh, instead drew out a shiver.

“You’re sure about this?” He asked because he wanted to hear it, wanted to live in this moment when the siege he’d laid to Armitage Hux finally brought down the last of his walls, when he made room for something more.

“Yes,” Armitage said, so softly yet still so loud in the quiet of the room. “I’m sure, Poe.”

“Okay,” Poe breathed out with a rush. “Okay, okay.” He didn’t know who he was speaking to anymore - Armitage, or himself - or the little voice inside his head that kept telling him this could not actually, finally, be happening.

All the finesse Poe once prided he possessed abandoned him when he poured too much lube over his fingers. It spilled messy and wet, slicking down his belly and onto the blanket, a pattern of dark spots that splashed an equally dark flush across his chest. _He_ felt like the blushing virgin here, and it nearly made him laugh.

But, Poe supposed he’d never actually had sex with someone he loved before.

He bit his lip, lifted his eyes to meet Armitage’s, saw his feelings reflected back. _Oh, stars._

Poe didn’t even try to hide the tremble in his hand when he slid his fingers over Armitage’s anus. Watched through hooded eyes as Armitage’s legs fell apart even wider, as his attention drifted low to watch Poe’s hand disappear between them. Or maybe he was looking as Poe’s cock? The thought made it jerk, balls twitching out a bead of precome. He was so hard his foreskin was drawn completely back from his tip, the swollen flesh a dark ruddy color that contrasted so nicely with Armitage’s milk pale skin. Poe couldn’t help but think of how lovely they would look together, suddenly wished it was also possible to be an outsider looking in; wished there was a way to record this into something tangible he could relive over and over. Something for him to hold onto when the world clawed them back into its unforgiving fold.

His hands _shook_ now, the tremble long since chased away. Poe was barely able to slick lube over his cock before he was leaning forward, reaching for Armitage and finding himself met halfway. Armitage was pushed up on one elbow, knees bent alongside Poe’s hips, his free arm circling around Poe’s shoulders as they came together in a kiss. And if Poe hadn’t braced a hand on the bed, he would have collapsed completely without it, what with the way Armitage opened up to him.

He was shaking just as much as Poe, maybe a little more.

Poe felt undone by it, felt undone by it all.

“Tell me if you need me to stop.” His voice sounded strange in his ears, too low and too rough, wrecked by something that ran far deeper than lust or sex. When Poe reached back and found Armitage’s thigh, he panted hard against Poe’s mouth. When Poe pushed that leg forward, hand hooked behind his knee, Armitage held his breath. But when Poe’s cock slid along his exposed cleft, Armitage let out that breath in a long strangled moan. It was a beautiful sound, one Poe committed to memory, a song he would never forget.

Poe dropped his forehead to Armitage’s and held them there, right at the edge. Spent their lives on a moment in time that they would only get once, no matter what kind of future awaited them.

When he eased into Armitage, he went slowly. He could feel everything: the fluttering clench of his sphincter as Armitage opened for Poe’s girth, the extra slick slide of the lubricant, and the heat that at once was feverishly hot and maddeningly not enough.

The unsteady breath that spilled over his lips could have been his or Armitage’s or both, Poe didn’t know anymore, didn’t think it made a difference. This was a lot for Poe, he could only imagine it was too much for Armitage.

“Okay? Need me to stop?” Poe lifted his eyes, searched his face. Armitage looked wrung out, desperate; lips bitten red and brows furrowed deep. He shook where he held onto Poe, where he held himself up, his arm around Poe’s shoulders clutching tightly at his sweat slicked skin.

“No, don’t- don’t stop.” There was desperation in his voice, but it was the way Armitage’s free leg curled around Poe’s waist, how his hips tilted towards him, that spoke so much more to Poe. Because it was as if Armitage thought this might all be stolen from him - that Poe might pull away, pull out, leave him bereft of something he had waited so long for.

“Not going anywhere,” Poe promised as he pressed a kiss to Armitage’s mouth.

Armitage faltered, throat closing over a small sound, face splitting open to expose a moment of utter vulnerability, before shuttering just as quickly. But not as completely. Poe wished he had a free hand to trace the cracks he saw linger.

Instead, he rolled his hips forward, slowly, carefully, deeply.

Completely.

Poe slid fully inside, bottoming out in a single slow thrust, Armitage’s body accepting him as if their shapes had been made to fit.

Armitage cried out, soft and strangled, and so very beautiful.

 _Oh, stars._ “Feel okay? Not too much?” Poe asked, managing something that didn’t sound as broken as he felt.

“ _Poe,_ ” Armitage said his name with his breath, barely there, but a plea nonetheless. Not an answer, but Poe wasn’t sure Armitage could manage much else. Bottom lip between his teeth, body shaking and breath catching, the whole of him looked completely strung taunt towards breaking. Somehow, they had barely begun, and Armitage already looked completely wrecked.

Poe moaned, dropped his head, instead looked between them, where he could watch the slow slide of himself as he drew back out, see how Armitage’s cock twitched when he just as slowly pushed back in. The dribble of precome that hit Armitage’s belly was so viscous it strung a line that shivered with the tremble in his body, only breaking with the jostle of Poe’s next thrust, a thrust that went deep, so deep it made a _sound_ , a soft squelch of their joined bodies that was almost lewd.

“ _Fuck_.” Poe’s breath caught, and he knew he needed to look away now or he was going to come.

A hand on his cheek drew him back.

Armitage had lowered to lay fully on the bed. He stared up at Poe now, eyes holding his as his shaking fingers moved over Poe’s face, coming to rest on his lips. There was something new here, Poe could feel it as surely as he could feel every inch of his body, every nerve and frayed ending. It was there in the hitch of Armitage’s chest, in his fingers where they shook against Poe’s lips, in the way his leg wrapped tighter around Poe’s waist to hold their hips together. Armitage had given up something far more meaningful than Poe could ever put words to. And he’d given it to _Poe_.

Poe felt his chest constrict, his heart doing its best to hammer itself free. Armitage was _perfect_ , more perfect than Poe thought possible. Too perfect to be real, to be his. And suddenly it made sense that none of this could last, because it wasn’t possible for anything to feel this right.

Poe blinked against the wetness gathering at his eyes, distracting himself with the kisses he pressed to Armitage’s fingers, his palm, his wrist.

“Poe. _Poe-_ ” And then Armitage found the tears that had begun to gather, trailed his fingers over the tracks they hadn’t yet made. “Are you- are you _crying_?”

“I’m okay,” Poe said even though he didn’t feel okay at all.

Armitage was not convinced. And Poe watched as he finally split open, not under the force of his own feelings, but from the sight of _Poe’s._ His hands were delicate where they touched him, both now cupping Poe’s cheeks, his eyes earnest as they searched him, mouth parting with words he left unspoken, absconded in favor of tugging Poe down into another kiss. A kiss that was no less arresting than the sight of his own cock disappearing inside Armitage, easily more.

Poe released Armitage’s leg, felt as it wrapped around his waist to match his other. Let Armitage pull him close with his hands at his cheeks and his legs at his waist, mouth open and hot and drawing Poe back to this present moment, where _this_ was all that mattered.

He thrust once, twice, finally found his angle on the third, when Armitage’s hands moved into Poe’s hair and his eyes fluttered shut with a strangled _moan_. Poe echoed the sound with his own gasp, tears forgotten, once more outrunning everything that threatened to take all this from him. Instead, Poe gave himself over to his body, repeating the motion, pursuing his pleasure in the things he could make Armitage feel, the sounds he could draw out. He was rewarded with another even longer moan, and then he knew had his rhythm, committed himself to it. Long deep thrusts, not too hard but angled just right, hitting Armitage’s prostate and then sliding back past it on the drag out.

It was a slow pace, slower than what Poe would need to come, but so much better for it, because it let them have _this_. There was no rush, no chasing something that would come too soon even without their frantic reaching for it. Here they could exist together, at least for a time. And time was something precious, a resource they did not have much of. Something Poe was not going to waste.

Not when he had Armitage shaking apart beneath him. No, Poe wanted this to _last_.

Armitage’s hands were twisted into Poe’s hair, holding him close, his eyes shut and head tipped back and the pale stretch of his throat bared so that Poe could see where his pulse fluttered beneath the skin. And _those_ noises were back, those same little catching sounds from before, too small to be called anything, but there all the same.

“Stars,” Poe couldn’t help himself, even as emotion threatened to overwhelm him, Poe was still completely _taken,_ “You’re beautiful, Armitage.”

Armitage made a strangled sound, face flushing red now, and Poe would have laughed if he didn’t think it might make Armitage self conscious.

“It’s true,” Poe instead affirmed, buried his face in that neck and placed his lips over his pulse point. It pounded beneath his lips, and Poe chased it up the stretch of muscle to Armitage’s ear, and whispered. “I knew you’d look pretty on my cock.”

“ _Poe_.” Armitage’s voice was strangled, barely sound at all, but he held Poe to him, turned his head to the side to meet his mouth again with a ferocity that sent a jolt straight to his cock, and Poe could not stop his smile.

“So good,” Poe breathed out against his lips as he continued his pace, now a little harder, a little deeper. Getting them a little closer. It was almost too much, feeling Armitage unravel all the more beneath him, his body holding onto Poe’s as if it were all he had left to cling to. “You feel so good around me.” And then he _ground_ his hips forward.

“Oh, _fuck_.” Armitage snapped out, hands jerking involuntarily in his hair, his hips lifting to meet Poe’s grind. “ _Ah- ah-_ ”

“Shh, you’re okay.” Poe breathed, backing off and holding still as Armitage worked himself on Poe’s cock in a mimic of his grind, little rolls of his hips, directed right into that spot. He could feel as Armitage’s control uncoiled, slipping from his grasp like his hands slipped from Poe’s hair. And Poe sucked in a breath when Armitage’s fingers pet down his cheeks, his jaw, his mouth moving against Poe’s in a slow slide - his hips moving against Poe in a slow undulation.

Suddenly, Poe wanted to touch him, _needed_ to. Bracing his weight on one arm, he dragged his hand down Armitage’s chest. His fingers pressed into his skin, leaving trails of flushed pink in their wake, until Poe reached Armitage’s stomach. Here, his cock twitched, red and _leaking_ , leaking so much it almost looked like he had already come. but Poe still resisted taking it in hand. Instead he pressed one palm into Armitage’s belly, and then he _thrust_ , right into his prostate, and watched as Armitage nearly shattered apart.

His cry was loud, not soft in the least, and completely strangled. Poe could feel the coiled tightness of him, there beneath his palm. He was close, Poe could literally feel it.

“Poe, I’m- _ah_ ,” Poe thrust again, into the same spot, his palm a firm pressure, then ground in hard. “ _Fu- fuck!_ ”

“You close?” And as Armitage nodded, his answer a breathy sob, Poe could feel the spill of Armitage’s breath, fast and shallow and so very warm with life. It was beautiful, entirely sensual, and Poe decided he might have been fooling himself that he was ever in control here.

They moved together, Poe driving a steady pace, Armitage taking everything Poe gave him. Another time Poe could have maybe drawn this out, could have held Armitage here at the edge, teasing release just to see how far he could push him, see how undone he could become. But Poe could already feel his own orgasm, coiled tight in the seat of him, fast approaching the point he would not be able to hold it back any longer. And he felt the same in Armitage, recognized the signs in his body, knew neither of them would last.

An ending, but one Poe wanted, one he allowed himself to run towards. He wanted to give Armitage this. Wanted to fill him up with so much more than this physical joining, wanted to show him a world that did not ask for anything more than his peace and contentment; a generous world Poe had been spoiled by, where the good things in life could be found in the simplest experiences. Because Poe understood now, how lucky he was to have known that world. And he would give Armitage a taste of it, keep him momentarily safe from a galaxy that had no problem taking, but did very little giving.

So when Armitage reached down to push Poe’s hand to his cock, asking for something so small in the grand scheme of life - a chance to feel something other than pain or shame or fear - Poe did not deny him.

“ _Please,_ ” Armitage begged, eyes wild, skin flushed with the dew of his sweat, feverish with his pleasure. A pleasure he wanted Poe to give him more of. Their fingers slipped over one another, as Poe took Armitage’s cock in hand. His precome was more than enough to slick Poe’s grip, and a moan crawled from Armitage’s chest, long and low and reaching right into Poe and holding tight, dragging him down to Armitage’s mouth as surely as the hands Armitage buried in his hair, where their half kiss did nothing to silence the sound. Armitage’s moan fractured into a broken whine, desperate and pleading, and Poe knew Armitage was about to come.

“Go on, I’ve got you,” Poe rasped out, hips driving right into that spot, working it in tandem with his hand. “Gonna come too, with you, together, _Armitage_ -”

They barely lasted another thrust, maybe two, before Poe felt the catch in Armitage’s body, the coil of pleasure that twisted limbs stiff in a preclude to release. Felt as his own body chased the feeling, his balls tightening, his hips stuttering, grinding deep, rhythm lost. Felt as Armitage’s hands twisted his hair, the gasp against his mouth loud, sharp, maybe a little surprised, as Armitage sucked in a breath, and then rendered it into a broken moan as he _came_ \- cock twitching, anus clenching. And whether it was the feeling of Armitage coming apart or the taste of his cry, Poe was pulled along with him, into a shudder that reached through his body, deep and seizing. He came and came inside the tight hold Armitage had around him, his arms and his anus and the assiduous grip he would always have on Poe’s heart.

Poe allowed the wetness at his eyes track trails down his cheeks. He was crying again, couldn’t stop it this time, didn’t try.

-

The man reflected in the mirror was not the same person Hux had been only hours before. He looked the same, in all those superficial ways he had perfected over the years; physical things Hux had once thought he had crafted for himself, but now wondered if they had not been inspired by something entirely erstwhile. His eyes were the same muted gray-green, his hair parted severely on his left, the turn of his mouth shallow but firm. But there was a vulnerability to this man that should not be there, exposed by the pattern of cracks that fractured his skin. If Hux had not recognized himself before, when he had worn the mask of rebel defector in some foolhardy attempt to con the Senate, he now saw a complete stranger reflected instead.

But the most peculiar thing was that the cracks did not look fresh. They looked old, ancient. Half-healed things that mapped out a history in their depths, their colors, their silent stories.

Hux wasn’t sure when he had become so broken. He was even less sure of when he had been put back together.

Something had changed inside him. Something nameless but important. Something Hux wasn’t sure he’d get the time to discover, but maybe that was okay, because maybe it didn’t really matter.

Because maybe what mattered, was what he had right now, right before him.

“You feeling okay?” Poe asked, as he stepped out of the refresher and joined Hux in front of the mirror. The water had washed away the evidence of their pleasure along with the swollen redness of Poe’s eyes, leaving behind that familiar light - what Hux was beginning to recognize as Poe’s love for him. But for once his question had nothing to do with Hux’s heart or his thoughts or his questionable emotional stability, but with the entirely physical state of his body. Poe’s fingers, where they traced down his hip, produced a shiver.

“Despite your best efforts I’m quite fine, Poe.” Hux chanced a smile, saw how his mirror self matched it. ”I believe your words were that you would _wreck me_ , I must say I’m rather disappointed.”

Poe laughed, low and warm, and Hux felt drawn to it - let himself be drawn back into it - as Poe wrapped his arms around him, stubbled chin hooking over Hux’s shoulder. “I’ll have to try harder next time, I guess, especially if you can still be this sarcastic after.”

Yes, something had changed. Hux had realized it the moment they entered their quarters, when the door had clicked shut behind them and the filtered golden light of Ajan Kloss’s sun had welcomed them into what Hux kept wanting to call home. Had realized it again when they had laid together in the aftermath of their sex, speaking of _everything;_ Everything about Ofant, everything said in Poe’s interview, everything that had happened on the beach. Poe had cried, openly and honestly in that empathetic way Hux didn’t know if he would ever get used to.

And he realized it again then, while surrounded by Poe’s embrace, when the rest of the world once again felt so far away. Whatever feelings had beleaguered Hux before had faded. And while their shallow remnants were left behind, it was these other feelings that had burrowed their hold deeper, that held siege on the fortress he had long ago forged against them.

Hope, happiness, _love_.

Whatever had changed in Hux ran far deeper than he could ever fathom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now it's been confirmed Poe cries during sex like the beautiful emotionally in touch man he is. 
> 
> I know this chapter is TOO LONG but I actually edited out an obscene amount.
> 
> Also, I'm sorry about how long this took me. My day job has been insane and I have a Big Project coming up which might get in the way of my free time. I don't think the next chapter will take as long, but I can make no promises!


	10. Repose

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being patient with me! No warnings for this chapter. But I do have some gorgeous artwork to share! I commissioned the incredibly talented @itssteffnow for two pieces of art for this story! I love them both and am so excited to share them with you ♥
> 
> Tumbr: [itssteffnow](https://tumblr.com/blog/itssteffnow)  
> Twitter: [@itssteffnow](https://twitter.com/itssteffnow)
> 
> Chapter 1 mini comic of the Finalizer falling:  
> [Image](https://itssteffnow.tumblr.com/post/630156087125032960)
> 
> Chapter 6's steamy hot spring scene:  
> [Image](https://itssteffnow.tumblr.com/post/631712786540527616)
> 
> I LOVE them so much and hope y'all do too! ♥♥♥

Sometimes, Hux still missed the numbing emptiness of space.

It was not just the lack of environmental extremes he yearned for, because he was ready to admit he’d finally become acclimated to Ajan Kloss’s tremulous heat waves, the density of her humidity, and the ever present touch of her sun. No, it was the spread of stars across his viewport Hux missed the most, the strung out pattern of lightspeed when those ever changing starscapes were wiped clean in favor of some new wild unknown. And he missed the quiet hum of the ion engines that permeated the very durasteel of the Finalizer, a constant reminder of the incredible engineering capabilities of the Order, of the people he led in galactic conquest.

In the beginning, those comforts had been enough. As unfamiliar as the stars were, there was familiarity in their constant fluxing spray. And the hum of the ion engines had lulled Hux’s eyelids closed as well as any sleep aid he could take. But that was in the beginning. By the end, too much had changed for those small comforts to ever be more than a distant dream remembered. There had been a time, Hux acknowledged, when he had been happy with the Order. When his graduation from the Academy and his first step outside his father’s grasp had manifested as a pride and attachment to the organization that offered him opportunities despite what his bastard heritage might otherwise demand.

Sometimes, he still missed that version of the First Order.

There were _good_ memories, even if they had eventually been buried under the stress of command. Nights spent working on _Force_ from the top bunk of his four-man quarters, his roommates busy playing dejarik over a cheap bottle of whiskey and a pack of cigs. Days spent eyeballs deep in a TIE’s control code, helping the engineering team trace out a bug that eluded even the Absolution’s chief of operations. And of course, that liminal place and time between his days as a Lieutenant and the issuance of his first command, where Hux had found himself climbing Order ranks with the respect of his peers but not yet the target on his back, where friends had never existed but comrades had, and whatever progress he had made on behalf of the Order had felt honest, genuine, like he was making a difference in the Galaxy.

His promotion to General should have been a moment of greatness. It had felt like as much, at the time. But with the promotion came his reporting to Snoke, and that peaceful place Hux had found for himself slipped through his fingers like the white sands of Arkanis. Now, Hux found himself in a similar position, where no matter how tightly he held on, the happiness he had found was slowly slipping from his grasp.

What Hux wouldn’t give for a cig, right then.

No, what he wouldn’t give for one of the Order’s medical grade sleep aides.

Hux could not sleep. Not an unusual occurrence, in the greater scheme of the last two decade of his life, but something that he had grown out of during the last few months. Addiction was, Hux knew, something he had struggled with. The pendulum swing from stims to sleep aides had wrecked havoc on his body’s internal rhythms, and his time spent abruptly locked away from the pharmaceuticals his body craved had probably wrecked even more havoc in those first few weeks. Now, as anxiety crawled through his limbs, as plans were wrought and remade within his head, Hux found himself slipping into old habits. Or rather, old addictions.

So in the absence of a sleep aide, Hux sat naked on the floor, back to the bed, facing the arching window wall of the bedroom, watching the moon fade from the sky and the sun paint the night with morning.

The cold gray glow of early dawn bloomed beyond the treetops, framed by the deep black of space, still early enough that the sky was mostly filled with stars. For a long moment Hux lost himself in them, remembered the shapeless constellations he had seen from the viewport of his quarters aboard the Finalizer. Laid out that image over this one and found each different, two discrepant parts that would never fit.

Like how the man that he once was would never fit with the man he had become. How the happiness he had experienced in the Order paled in comparison to what he was experiencing now.

Poe slept on behind him, buried under the blankets of their bed, curled into the space Hux had vacated. He wished he could crawl back into bed alongside Poe, find the comfort he sought in the hold of his arms, be lulled to sleep by his warmth and his scent and the soft sounds of his breath. They had spent the previous day in various states of intimacy, and perhaps it was his long afternoon nap that had spoiled his night's sleep, or the aches in parts of his body he never knew could ache as they did. More likely, it was the impending end that he was facing that kept him from sleep, but Hux had decided he was no longer going to think about that. If he only had so many days left to live, he was going to spend them happy, happy with Poe.

A trilling buzz jolted through Hux, and as he stared at the fading twinkle of the stars in the sky, it occurred to his sleep-deprived mind that it wasn’t their tremulous twinkling that made such a racket, but the sound of a datapad.

It was where Poe had left it, set atop the table with the box of parts, beeping and buzzing and overall making far too much noise. Someone needed to get up, answer the call, or at least silence it. And Hux supposed it should be Poe, both because Hux wasn’t sure he could stomach the news it might bring, and it was _Poe’s_ datapad. He turned where he sat, eyes following the line of Poe’s shoulder, softened by the drape of the blanket. His face was relaxed, mouth gently parted, curls skewing havoc across his brow. He looked wiped out, in the way only physical exertion could inspire.

“Poe,” Hux murmured while he reached out to stroke his hair. “Poe, wake up.”

“Don’t wanna, go back to sleep,” It came out as a whine, and Hux sighed.

“It’s your datapad. Dameron. Someone is calling you.”

“Tell ‘em to call back later.” Yes, that was certainly what Hux would describe as a _whine_.

The datapad quieted, a soft trill indicating a missed call. Poe sighed, a smile playing at his lips, “There, alone again at last.”

Sleep had warmed him, cocooned as he was under the blanket, and Hux allowed himself to enjoy the sensation. Just like he had allowed himself to enjoy the previous day, bound up in Poe, the two of them momentarily beyond the reach of their greater circumstances. Hux knew it was a fleeting solace, and he had accepted his need to make the most of it. Despite that, a call to Poe’s datapad could be _important_.

“Aren’t you a morning person?” Hux sighed as he shifted around to fold his arms atop the mattress, watching Poe as he warred to remain asleep. His eyes stayed closed, as if that were the last barrier between him and waking.

“I was until you kept me up all night.” The smile that cracked open his face was unmistakably devious. Hux felt his cheeks flush. “ _Please Poe, don’t stop. More. I need more._ ” Hux’s flush blossomed into a _blush_ , as Poe’s eyes finally opened to regard him, “What are you doing down there?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted, and Poe’s smile softened again.

“Come here.” A thinly veiled command, not a request, and Hux found his body obeying of its own accord. When he was back under the blanket, he allowed himself to be maneuvered into Poe’s hold. Their bodies fit together, Poe’s leg thrown over his thighs, his arm under the pillow at Hux’s head, free hand trailing his chest, “I can think of one way you could get me up,” and then Poe’s mouth dipped to latch onto Hux’s pulse point, tongue slick and pressure building. Hux idly thought he was going to leave a mark.

“You’re positively intolerable,” Hux breathed, even as his body reacted to the ideas Poe planted with his mouth, where another day could be put off until later, where they could spend a long morning waking up to each other’s touch.

The datapad had other ideas.

“Kriffing hell,” Poe muttered when the ringing began again. “Guess I’m up now.”

Hux missed his warmth when Poe slipped from under the blanket. He settled instead for the sight of Poe’s bare butt flexing as he padded across the room. It was an image Hux committed to memory, something he filed away alongside all the other versions of Poe he had seen. This one might be his new favorite. From his vantage, Poe looked carved from marble, the gray light of early morning painting him in grisaille. But when Poe picked up the datapad and froze, the idea became strikingly, _uncomfortably_ real. Poe’s eyes were caught on the screen, the datapad still indicating obnoxiously. Hux’s stomach dropped.

 _What is it?_ He chose not to ask, watching as Poe silenced the call and quickly typed out a message instead. In profile, Hux could not read Poe’s expression, but he could read his body language: stiff, sharp, _anxious_. Hux slowly sat up, pulling the blanket into his lap. The room’s conditioning unit chose that moment to click on, and Hux hoped the hum of it smothered the sound of his swallow.

When Poe returned to bed, his expression was uncharacteristically guarded. And as their eyes met, and his hands pulled Hux back down to the mattress, Hux resisted asking after the call. Of all the ideas he could come up with, not one of them was _good_. Fortunately, Poe did not keep him in the dark.

“It was just my dad,” said Poe simply, as if the fact that Poe had never mentioned his father before would be lost on Hux. Family. Poe had a family _._ Of course he had a _family._

Hux chose his words carefully, traced out the shape of them, the contours of an unspoken thought dulled smooth, “Your father? Shouldn’t you answer his call?”

“Nah, I told the comms controller to take a message, he’ll understand,” Poe said too surely, like he didn’t quite believe what he said. “He’s only a few standard hours ahead, I can call him back later if I need to.”

“Won’t he be mad?” Hux knew as soon as the words were out they were the wrong ones. Poe was giving him _that_ look.

This time it was Poe who took his time with his words, “No, he won’t be mad.” His tone was kind, his understanding plain. Hux felt like a fool. Poe’s father would not be mad; Poe’s father _cared_ about him. In the soft morning light Hux found himself drawn to Poe’s eyes, darker than the shadows around him, filled with a warmth of affection that should be obscene with how it so easily spilled from him.

Of course Poe’s father cared about him, how could he not?

Which meant Poe did not want to talk to his father for another reason, and the only reason Hux could think of was _him_. He swallowed again, this time it did make a sound.

“Armitage, I can hear your thoughts and I’m not even Force sensitive.” There was a small smile playing across Poe’s lips, “Don’t worry. I’m fine, he’s fine. I’ll talk to him later, I promise, now is just-” _Not a good time,_ went unspoken.

Whatever fragile ease they had regained was spoiled in the span of that silence. Reality crashed down around Hux. All the unknowns and what-ifs converged into an overwhelming impotence, and despite it, time still ticked by. However small his world felt here with Poe, however protected and sacred was the sanctity of this space, Hux knew how heavy the weight of the world was beyond these walls. He did not want to leave.

Of all the situations Hux had faced down: Snoke’s throne room, his father’s Academy, Ren’s council table, Starkiller Base crumbling around him…never before had he so much to loose. Not in the ways that really mattered.

“Armitage,” Poe’s voice had dropped and his hands were moving over his body, drawing him closer, until Hux was tucked under Poe’s chin, face buried in the crook of his neck. Hux pressed himself there, closed his eyes and breathed. “It’s alright, you’re okay.”

Nothing was _okay_. “Poe,” he whispered, sound as elusive as the sands of Arkanis. _I’m scared._

“I know,” Poe said and Hux wondered if he really were as void of the Force as he promised. His arms were warm where they wrapped around him, holding tight, not letting go. Hux never wanted him to let go. “I know.” _Me too._

-

The next time Poe awoke was to a bright sun and an empty bed.

He rolled over into the spot where Armitage should have been, finding the mattress cool to the touch and the blanket tucked in tight. But the worry Poe expected never came, because he could smell the warm waft of caf coming from the living area, the sounds of clinking mugs as they were placed on the counter lulling him back into the haze of slumber. When he heard the soft trill of BB-8’s binary, a lazy smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. He drifted there, existing in this liminal space, where the tide of his thoughts skimmed the surf tossed edge of a dream. And for a moment Poe let this be his life. Pretended this was just any other morning, special only in the way a lazy morning could be with its mundane banality, a comfort Poe found himself falling head over heels for.

He laid in his bed for a few minutes longer, listening to the quiet sounds of Armitage tinkering at something in the kitchen, the whir of BB-8 at his heels, the golden light of Ajan Kloss’s sun warming his bare skin as the conditioning unit pumped out a steady blast of cold air. There was a brief second, not more than a breath, where Poe felt overcome. Where what was and what could be felt so incongruous to what he knew to be real that he had to take a moment to reframe himself within reality.

 _Don’t take this from me_. He asked whoever might be listening, whatever force, known or unknown, that might hear.

Eventually, when the electric kettle beeped and Armitage’s voice broke over the sound of the BB-8’s melodic chirps, Poe slid out of bed. His clothes were folded neatly atop the edge of the mattress, lines crisp and smelling sweetly of the freshener Poe used when he ran his clothing through the sonic. Armitage was behind this, just as he was behind the half made bed and the comforting scent of caf.

Poe dressed and then went back to the bed, smoothed out the sheet, tucked in his side of the blanket, and fluffed the still rumpled pillows. Curled atop one was a single golden red length of hair. Poe plucked it up, smiling, holding it to the light as he rolled it between his fingertips so it caught with a fiery glimmer. It was stupid, how happy it made him, that such a simple thing could bring him so much joy. Almost as much joy as that birthed by the warm mug and small smile that greeted him when he stepped out of the bedroom.

“Good morning, Poe,” Hux said simply, in that lilting imperial accent, testing and tasting and tentatively wonted. Poe did not disagree.

“Mornin’,” he replied with a grin, cupping the mug in his hands, deeply breathing in the curl of steam, lost to this domestic bliss; subsumed by the spell it cast over him, the hypnagogic weave of a dream given life.

A single sip, the caf bitter and black just as he liked, and then he placed the mug aside and met Armitage there at the edge of the counter; took him in his arms and pressed their bodies together. Armitage leaned into him, breath slow, body pliant, giving and receiving. But there was a fragility to the way he handed himself over to Poe’s touch, as if he still expected himself to shatter under the press of Poe’s hands. He would not shatter, Poe would not allow it.

Poe would have this. He would protect this. He would give Armitage this and so much more.

“You slept late,” Armitage remarked as he turned his face into Poe’s hair. His skin, warm and pale under the press of Poe’s mouth, tasted clean. Armitage must have showered, must have been up for quite some time.

“What can I say, you wore me out,” Poe murmured into his neck. Armitage’s pulse fluttered under Poe’s tongue when he laved over the skin, his response lost to the sound of his sigh. Tilting his head to bare his neck further, pulse telling where his words were hushed, Armitage failed to silence the desire hiding behind the fabricated construct of his control. Poe loved Armitage’s neck as much as his hands, he decided then.

“Hmm,” Armitage finally made a sound, and Poe felt his body press closer against him. The line between comfort and desire blurred, as Poe lazily worked over Armitage’s neck, as Armitage’s hand slipped into his hair to hold him there. “You’ll leave a mark, if you keep that up.”

Poe pulled away, just enough to stare at the way Armitage’s skin had reddened beneath his attention. A few of the blood vessels had already broken in a constellation of sparks, and he lifted a hand to smooth a thumb over the mark, slick with his saliva. “Think I already did, I‘m sorry.” Poe wasn’t really sorry, because he liked the way the mark looked way too much.

But Armitage didn’t seem to mind, not with the way he turned his head down to capture Poe in a kiss, as slow and easy as the rest of the morning.

Yes, Poe decided. As far as mornings went, this was as perfect as they got. Here, Poe forgot all about the woes of the outside world. Here, he could suspend himself in this simple existence, where the only things that mattered were the sounds Armitage made when they kissed, the warmth of his skin, and the bitter black scent of freshly brewed caf. Fuck the Senate and the rest of the Galaxy, because Poe would have this, he would make this _real_.

Poe was debating his path back to the bedroom when BB-8 bumped his leg, trilling binary at him to let Armitage go. Poe toed him away, mouth opening beneath Armitage’s, hands sliding down his waist to his hips, thumbs drawing lines over the jut of bone. He could edge him backwards along the counter, and from there would have a clear shot to the bedroom. Or better yet, he could turn Armitage around, take him right there, bent over the kitchen counter, pants around his ankles, legs spread only wide enough for Poe to slide inside…

BB-8 trilled again, more insistent, almost mad, and then he _banged_ into Poe’s shin, “ _Shit-_ ” Poe pulled back with a gasp. Cursed again when BB-8 wedged itself between their bodies, rolling over Poe’s bare toes to get there. “The hell BB?” Poe yelped, nearly jumping to get out of its way. A low sound from Armitage sailed through Poe and right down into his half hard cock, he was _laughing_.

“I was assisting it before you so rudely interrupted,” Armitage withdrew, stepping out of Poe’s reach even as his eyes caught and held his. When they roved down his body with a telling acknowledgment, the heat of his attention lingered in all the right places, set fires that burned far beneath the surface of Poe’s skin.

Poe nearly whined, nearly swore, settled instead on laughing as BB-8 wiggled around defensively at Armitage’s feet. “So sorry BB, stars forbid I get between the two of you.” He lifted his hands in a placating gesture, rolling his eyes as he gave Armitage his softest smile yet.

Armitage returned it, BB-8 chirping an indignant confirmation, and Poe committed himself to this; again promised himself this was just another morning, the first of so many to come. _I won’t let this be taken from us_. An affirmation made, an intention set. Because Poe recognized the feeling solidifying in his gut when Armitage smiled and BB-8 ran circles round their feet. Knew what this easy morning meant. Understood the deeper implications of their comfortable exchange. Poe loved Armitage Hux, that had finally been admitted, _committed_ , but this went beyond words, beyond any physical expression. This fleeting picture of routine that felt so familiar, this felt like _family._

 _My family._ Poe held onto that, would fight for it, like he’d fought for everything else worthwhile in his life. Poe could not tear his eyes away from Armitage as he returned to the task he had set himself to, head bent enough that his loose hair fell over his eyes, long fingers flying over the screen of Poe’s datapad. Poe imagined him in a different setting, one set on a secluded plot of land, in a kitchen that housed more than an ion oven and a mini cold unit, within a house whose walls were covered in tokens of past adventures, its windows overlooking not a wild jungle but a welcoming forest, the distant light of the city port eclipsed beyond an ancient range of sleepy snow-capped mountains.

Poe placed Armitage into that scene. An Armitage whose lines weren’t drawn taunt with a festering worry, whose clothing was made for his fit, whose skin was still pale, but not sickly, because he’d lived enough peaceful years under the sun of the place they had chosen together to make their home.

But as appealing as Poe’s daydream was, nothing could compare to reality. Because watching Armitage work was mesmerizing in the same way watching a spider weave a web was mesmerizing; an abstract beauty of a creature within its natural habitat, creating something Poe could barely comprehend. Poe studied him from his quiet spot against the counter, slipping in and out of his fantasy, nursing the fluttery feeling birthing alive within his chest.

Atop the counter was a wiring harness stringing together several of Armitage’s power cells, along with a control chip which he had connected to the datapad. Poe could only read a smattering of the code on the screen, the rest lost to the gibberish that was programming logic beyond his rudimentary knowledge. But, like the wiring harness, Poe could connect enough to form an idea, “Is this why you haven’t been back here to recharge BB? Have you been running around on power cells all these weeks?”

BB-8 trilled, excited with the idea that he could run off an auxiliary power source for so long without the need to power down for a deep charge cycle. Whatever Armitage was coding, Poe guessed it was a more permanent solution. He didn’t have to wait long for an explanation.

“Your BB unit is well designed, but its battery is sub optimal for its performance. Rather than reworking its entire system, I believe I can utilize the power cells to charge his battery while rigging his rotary motions to an alternator that will recharge the cells. You BB is quite fidgety, and with all that constant movement the alternator should function well,” Armitage explained, and Poe was reminded of that morning so many weeks ago, when Armitage explained the machinations behind _Force_. “It will be the closest I can get to a closed system, it might only need to deep charge once every year or so.”

Once every _year_? Poe knew his mouth was hanging open, “Is this what you do when you can’t sleep? Hugs, you’re a damn genius.”

Armitage snorted, almost sneered, “The setup is child’s play. The trick is in the code, so that the power cells only charge the battery, and not so much to overload its circuits. But I believe I’ve worked everything out, and your BB has agreed to test the design.” He tapped the code off screen, unplugged the datapad. “I’ve added an alert to your datapad to monitor its internal temperature in case it become too hot. Your BB unit will of course already know by that point and can activate the safety switch to cut the connection to the power cells. The Order uses a similar system for our energy weapons, it should work fine.”

Poe blinked at Armitage, then stared down at the daisy-chained power cells and tiny control board. He understood enough to know how long it would have taken one of his engineers to design a similar system: days - weeks, more likely. “How long have you been working on this?” Poe reached out, turned over one of the small glowing cells. It was completely cool to the touch, the little ion reactor inside more stable than any engine he’d ever seen.

“Two hours, maybe a little more. It would have gone faster if I had my codepad. Debugging with a text editor has slowed me down quite a bit.” Armitage disconnected Poe’s datapad from the control chip, gesturing at BB-8 as he said, “Would you please open your housing compartment, I believe everything is ready now.”

BB-8 squealed with excitement, his tool bay collapsing inward while the shielding covering his housing slid open with a _hiss_. Poe watched as Armitage bent down and gathered the power cells into a tight bundle, securing them into one of the empty accessory ports alongside BB-8’s internal frame. The control chip he had BB-8 solder into his own motherboard, and the alternator he secured to another accessory port, attaching via pulley to one of the motorized wheels that enabled BB-8 to move. Finally, he ran a wire from the power cell’s harness to the alternator. It would work, Poe knew it would. He had enough experience with speeders to recognize the mechanics Armitage was implementing. Poe was _impressed_.

“If you find the system is not working optimally you can recharge normally as needed,” Armitage explained to a wiggling BB-8. Poe could not remember the last time it had acted so _ecstatic_.

It zipped around the room in wide circles, then doubled back in the opposite direction, finally coming to a stop at the center of the room. Wobbling in place, BB-8 trilled binary at Armitage, a string of thanks yous said so fast and so often that Poe couldn’t stopper his laugh. “Well if you hadn’t already won over BB-8 you definitely have now.”

“If only everyone important in your life were a droid,” Armitage smiled back at him, joke sarcastic but innocent, but Poe could not stop the falter in his smile as he thought of _Kes._ That was all it took for Armitage to realize what he had implied, for his own smile to fade, his words thickly spoken, “Poe, I apologize.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said as he stepped back beside Armitage, finding his hand where to rested on the counter. “Believe it or not, Hugs, you are quite likable.” Poe gave his grin everything he had, his fingers tracing over the backs of Armitage’s knuckles. “You’ll win everyone over. Don’t worry about it.”

 _With time,_ went unspoken, as so much else had that morning. Once again Poe was reminded that what they had here, right then, was an oasis among the forces at play in their lives. Somewhere they could pretend everything was okay, in which reality could not reach beyond the protection of this room; Their peace as fragile as the birdlike bones of Armitage’s fingers where they threaded between Poe’s.

 _With time._ Though time was something they may not have much of.

“Poe, there is something I must ask of you,” Armitage eventually said into the quiet, after several long minutes of them watching BB-8 trundle around the room in silence. “I am not sure how long the Senators will wait before making their decision. If I-” Armitage cut himself off, meeting Poe’s eyes only briefly, “-if I am arrested before the Order reaches out, someone will need to take my place negotiating with them. I was hoping you might. They will-” again Armitage cut himself off, face twisting as he stared at their connected hands. Poe could feel how his had begun to tremble. “-they will know your face. And from the leaked footage from the Steadfast, they will already know how you helped me, helped another First Order. You are not the enemy in the same way Organa is, or the Senators. They will respect your piloting abilities, your battle experience, your defeat of the Fulminatrix. Will you do that, will you negotiate with them, if I am unable?”

Poe wanted to say no. Wanted to remind Armitage that if the Senators decided to arrest him, Poe was getting him off planet in that transport. He was not going to wait around negotiating with anyone while the man he loved was marched off to his execution.

Instead, Poe said, “You know I’ll do whatever you ask of me,” and that felt far more like the truth.

“Thank you, Poe.” The indelible honesty of the words struck deep, encompassed far more than this single request.

 _Thank you for everything_.

Poe lifted their tangled fingers to his lips, before stepping close enough to find Armitage’s mouth with his own. Not quite a kiss, but close; lips brushing, breath mingling. It was a slow thing, even when Armitage’s free hand found Poe’s waist and brought their bodies flush together, when Poe tilted his head and stroked Armitage’s cheek and guided them into something only a little deeper. Poe felt when Armitage let go, when the control of his breath staggered in tandem with Poe’s gentle touches, when the tension in his arm built into a grasping clasp. The kiss devolved, and they held each other instead: Poe’s face buried in Armitage’s neck, Armitage’s cheek against Poe’s curls. When Poe once again found that spot on Armitage’s neck, he pressed in words alongside his kisses, promises made, promises to be kept.

The sound of his datapad broke over the moment in an ice cold torrent. It buzzed, vibrating harshly against the counter top, indicating a series of beeps that meant a message had been received, rather than a call. Armitage pulled away with a jolt, face stricken blank as he stared down at the device. Poe may as well have been a mind reader, as he watched the expectant weight of the worst settle over Armitage, a harbinger haunting his every thought. Poe did not let him pull away any further. When- _if_ the worst was to come, Poe would be there, would not allow Armitage to go through it alone.

The datapad indicated again, one more obnoxious buzz and beep before falling silent. Poe reached for it with a confidence he did not feel.

Relief crashed over him, when the message loaded. _Rose_. It was only Rose. Rose, who was inviting them both to meet her and Finn in an hour for lunch. Rose, whose next sentence was asking after _Armitage_. Rose, who was the best and the worst because of course she knew Armitage would turn down their invitation, but was still kind enough to extend it. Poe read the message again, allowed a smile to play over his lips, nursed the feeling of relief that felt so intangible in the seat of his heart.

“I am rather hungry,” Armitage’s voice suggested quietly, and it took Poe a breath before he connected his thoughts.

“Yeah?” He asked, cadence tentative, “You want to join them?”

Armitage, when he responded, carefully plucked his words free, “Yes, I do.” And then, “Though they’re not droids, so I make no promises.”

Poe kissed Armitage then, a real kiss, filled with promises, to be made and to be kept.

-

Mess was as busy as it ever was. The drone of a thousand voices crescendoed over the clamor of cutlery scraping and glasses clinking, while the brushing passes of so many bodies lit upon Poe a strange energetic draw. Armitage followed close behind him, the two weaving through space in a tangential path. First Order and Resistance alike parted in equal proportion to allow a quicker passage. Even dressed as he was, in Resistance greens and browns, Armitage was recognizable. Poe caught the eyes that followed them, the quickly dropped heads bent together over datapads, the broken fragments of words whispered: _Dameron, Hux, Starkiller._

Poe didn’t think the sight of them together should be strange, anymore. He thought for sure the base had grown used to them like this, had accepted the sight of their two most prolific figureheads in constant proximity to one another. Suddenly, Poe glanced at Armitage, making sure they had not left evidence of their particular newfound brand of closeness, fighting back a grin at the idea of a sex-mussed General Hux strolling confidently among his crew, unaware of the state of his own dishevelment. But Armitage looked _normal:_ hair slicked to the right, shirt buttoned up to virginous affront, the ghost of a sneer firmly in place. The only thing that might have looked out of place was Poe’s scarf wrapped around his neck, but the rest of the clothing would have been equally strange, and Armitage had been wearing the same for days.

Even the droid following them was a familiar presence at this point.

“Why are they staring?” Armitage hissed, shooting a glare over his shoulder at a former trooper who had stopped mid-squat above his seat to watch them pass, tray of food clattering loudly to the table in his sudden haste to pull up into a salute.

“I dunno Hugs, maybe you should try to look more terrifying?” Poe resisted the urge to reach out and adjust Armitage’s scarf. It had slipped a little to the side, not enough to expose the mark on his neck, but it would be an easy excuse to touch him.

Armitage narrowed his eyes, but his bite was playful, “Maybe you should stop strutting around like a cat who caught the canary?”

“Is that what you are? A pretty little bird?” Poe lowered his voice, flashed a grin, threw him a _wink_ , and heard a quiet gasp from his right. Maybe someone within earshot, maybe a coincidence. Poe’s grin split wider.

“Have I told you lately how intolerable you are, Dameron?” Armitage snarled amusement, his sneer as false as his voice, the pink across his cheeks telling him everything he needed to know. Poe really, _really,_ wanted to turn around and _touch_ him.

Instead, he searched the mass of people for the familiar shapes of his friends.

Found them at a table that was not empty.

Somehow, Armitage was already one step ahead, “I should have expected this.”

There, sat amicably beside Rose and Finn, were two other familiar shapes; namely, those belonging to Phasma and Dopheld Mitaka. The four had not noticed them yet, sat instead in amiable community, conversation passing naturally among them, as if they ate lunch together every day. Maybe they did. Maybe Poe had been oblivious to far more than the convergence of their extended commands.

When Finn laughed at something Mitaka said, Poe had to restrain himself from bounding over and finding out just what was so kriffing funny. Instead, he turned to Armitage and asked, “You knew about this?”

“Hardly,” Armitage said as he drew up alongside Poe, voice quiet. “But I saw Mitaka last week sitting with your friends. He appeared to be in a relationship with another of your own. I saw them-” he paused, swallowed, eyes sweeping the tables around them, “-it doesn’t matter. We shouldn’t be surprised, I’m sure they planned this though, which means they’re plotting something.”

At that, Poe could not stop his laugh, “Maybe they just wanted to surprise us?”

Armitage met his eyes, raised a brow, “Have you met Phasma? Does she strike you as a person who enjoys surprises?”

“So we should prepare for a good old fashioned friendly lunchtime knifing, is what you’re saying?”

“She prefers poison, but knives are certainly not out of the question.” Armitage pursed his lips, eyes roving Poe’s, as he said ominously, “But it is Tico you really must watch out for. She uses her teeth for far more than eating.” And Poe momentarily could not tell if he was _joking_ , but then a smile break of a smirk across Armitage’s mouth gave him away. There was a story there, one Poe wanted desperately to hear.

Poe’s laugh hedged with genuine mirth, “Hugs, has anyone ever told you that you worry too much?”

“Experience has taught me otherwise.” And then Hux slipped around Poe and took the lead in approaching the table. Poe recognized the play of bravado, the control Armitage would assert over this uncomfortable situation by approaching it head on. It was a method Poe could respect, one he often took himself. And as much of a meticulous planner he knew Armitage to be, no one could ever call him a coward.

Poe lingered behind, something holding him back, a desire to watch _this_ unfold; to observe as two sides of his world came together not in the dust filled collision of opposing forces, but in an open affability. It struck through Poe, a feeling that was never too far beneath his surface, but now broke through in a torrent. He could not name it, not even as he watched Rose rise from her seat at Armitage’s approach, the smile that split her face honest as she greeted him and gestured enthusiastically towards two empty chairs. Two chairs that sat beside Finn, who’s own smile was reserved but body language comfortable, his spoken words of greeting hushed over the hum of the room.

And of course Armitage himself: the slope of his shoulders as they relaxed from their severe hold. The tilt of his head as he inclined an acknowledgment. The weight of his body as he slowly lowered himself into the furthest seat, so careful and tentative and hidden behind a veil of assertion, what Poe knew was a front for his deeper feelings of worth and self-doubt. And in the way he turned to Phasma for strength, who had also been quietly observing this whole time - though not Armitage, Poe realized, but _him_.

Her eyes were always ice, but as Poe met them he felt a trickle of warmth.

Poe hurried to the table. While only a handful of seconds behind Armitage’s own arrival, the time felt so much greater, what with how the dynamic of his arrival crashed over the gathered group.

“Poe!” Rose clapped her hands together, the toothy stretch of her grin different from the smile that greeted Armitage. Suddenly, Poe worried that maybe Armitage was right about that _plot_. “The man of the hour has arrived, our _hero_ of the Resistance!”

“Not you too,” Poe laughed, taking a seat at the only empty chair left, the one between Armitage and Finn. “There was a Senate aide who called me that, I had to nearly fight her off.”

An aborted sound to his left meant Armitage had heard. Poe had not mentioned the aide, not that she _mattered_.

“Come on, we know you love the attention,” Finn rolled his eyes as he said it. “Don’t you dare try to tell me you haven’t already read every single article released about you-” When Finn’s gaze landed on Poe, the humor in his voice was absent from his eyes, “-or watched every second of footage.”

 _Footage?_ The word felt like a slap, and Poe realized, right then, just how oblivious he truly was.

 _Oh, no_.

“What are you two talking about?” Poe said quietly, a hint of humor, as if playing dumb could change anything. When his attention shifted from Finn to the droid hovering several paces away, the glint of a lens caught the late morning light spilling through the windows. And that was more of an answer than anything Finn or Rose could say.

“You haven’t been following the holo news cycle?” Rose asked innocently, as innocently as a hunting Rathtar could.

The quiet half of the table, the end that included Phasma and Mitaka, were watching him and Armitage carefully. Armitage’s eyes met his, a brief exchange, wordless in the same way the dawning realization of what was happening required no words.

Because Poe knew now, the droids weren’t creating some private documentation of the events here, they were _broadcasting_ them.

Armitage was the first to break the silence, though he spoke softly enough for his words to be private, “Your father’s call this morning.”

It hit Poe, all at once, what he meant.

Armitage always was one step ahead.

All the footage of them walking the halls of the base together, of them holding hands, of Poe seeing Armitage off in the transport, of them _embracing_. Kes had seen it all. He knew. Had found out alongside the rest of the kriffing Galaxy that his son was in love with General Armitage Hux - with _Starkiller_.

And before him, Poe watched how Armitage’s face closed over his emotions, how quickly his walls flew up in the face of this exposure. Poe knew, he _knew_ , what Armitage was thinking, as surely as he knew what the rest of the Galaxy was thinking. And like that morning, Armitage’s assumption that this was it, the line in the sand, the limit that would break them…

He was _so_ fucking _wrong_.

Under the table, Poe slid his hand over Armitage’s thigh, gave it a squeeze. He would not have hidden his touch if he didn’t understand Armitage’s own limits, would have fucking kissed him right their on camera if he didn’t think Armitage would protest.

“Everyone knows?” Poe asked no one in particular and everyone at once.

“Yeah, bud, it’s all over the holonet,” Finn said it not unkindly, but his solemnity was plain, his dark eyes understanding. Poe tried to imagine it, what the articles must say, the vitriol they spread, the criticism of the _Hero of the Resistance_ becoming involved with _Starkiller_ , the most notorious man of their generation.

“Well-” Phasma’s voice snapped, “-now that the secret is out, at least let that droid get a look at this,” she said as she reached across the table, and in a split second before anyone knew what was happening, she snagged Armitage’s scarf and tugged it aside.

Tension twisted, sharp alongside the sound of Armitage’s gasp, and then broke with a _crack_.

“ _Phasma,_ unhand that!” Hux snapped, acidic with panic, smacking her hand away while turning the most brilliant shade of _pink_.

Poe saw the droid from the corner of his eye shift incrementally enough that its focus on Armitage was made obvious. The mark, luckily, wasn’t obvious; however, Armitage’s blush _was_. And as Phasma had broke down into a guffawing fit of laughter while Armitage snarled obscenities under his breath, it was all Poe could do to suppress his mirth.

“By the Force,” Finn whispered. “Those two were running the show on the Finalizer?”

“Don’t forget Kylo Ren,” Mitaka whispered it like a secret.

Hysteria edged giggles burst from Mitaka and Rose and Finn, a warmth from Phasma, who was now grinning at Armitage with a softness he didn’t know her capable of. And Poe’s hand remained where it was, on Armitage’s thigh, gripping it with a strength he genuinely felt, here surrounded by people who cared about them, who wanted to break this news to them, rather than have them find out through the unfortunate circumstance of the public eye.

The same public eye that was currently observing them, broadcasting a solidarity between enemies - the Resistance’s and the Order’s brightest leaders gathered together in familiar congeniality.

There was no plot here, only protection.

The conversations split at that point. Finn and Rose laughed at something related to the man Mitaka was saying, the three’s easy chit chat revealing a relationship that spanned far longer than Poe would have ever suspected. And Phasma and Armitage were bent together in a quiet, personal exchange; mostly one-sided, by the sound of Phasma’s softly spoken words, the hang of Armitage’s head.

Poe sat in his own silence, datapad a dead weight in his pocket now that he knew what he might find when he turned it on next. What _Armitage_ might find, when he inevitably went searching for it.

Despite what Armitage might think, Poe was not ashamed of _this_. He was not upset, at least no more upset beyond the irritation that their privacy had been stolen. That Kes had to find out about them from some tasteless news article. Poe thought it was entirely possible he was blowing everything out of proportion. Surely, the public wasn’t interested in their relationship, but the incredible peace that was being crafted here. A peace that went beyond political negotiations, a peace that was being woven through the very fabric of the base. People had better things to focus their time and energy on than two stranger’s love lives, no matter how infamous either might be, Poe convinced himself not at all.

No, Poe lived on a Force-cursed military base, he knew the value of juicy gossip better than most.

“I’m going to get us a tray,” Armitage’s voice murmured in his ear, breath warm on his cheek, the shift of his thigh under Poe’s hand an anchor Poe did not want to give up. But before Poe could say as much, Armitage was slipping out from under his hold. A delicate hand briefly touching his shoulder, sliding along his back as he moved, a marvel if Poe could ever name one, because the droid was still watching, had seen it _all_. And then Armitage was off, making his way to the food stations. Poe watched him go, watched the droid that had followed them circle round to follow what was, Poe now understood, not its ward, but a star of its show.

Poe stared after him, willed his feet to stay planted where they were. Assured himself that Armitage would be fine, that the food stations weren’t so far that this could be construed as him leaving Armitage alone like he promised never to do again.

Breathed a sigh of relief, when Rose and Finn stood up a moment later, heading after Armitage to get their own lunch.

Wondered if there actually was some plot, when suddenly Dopheld Mitaka caught his eye.

“Dameron, Sir, there is something I would speak with you about.” Mitaka held himself at attention now, so different from when it was Rose and Finn he was speaking with, as if Poe’s very relation to Armitage elevated him to a pedestal he did not deserve.

“Yeah, of course, what is it?” Poe tried to sound casual, but the tightness in Mitaka’s mouth was throwing him off. Phasma quietly watched on, eyes sliding over the room as if she expected something dangerous to emerge from the crowd. Yeah, maybe they _were_ plotting something.

“It’s regarding the Order’s net. It came up yesterday, briefly, during the update of _Force_. Before it went back down I was able to download a significant amount of data for offline viewing. There is something you need to see.” Mitaka held his datapad out, offering it to Poe without hesitation.

“You really sure you want me to see this?” Poe asked even as he accepted the datapad. It was the same model as Phasma’s, sleek and black and far nicer than any piece of tech he had ever owned.

“Of course, Sir. I believe it is imperative that you do.” Poe wondered if Mitaka’s back could get any more straight. “If I might suggest taking a look at the internal message boards.”

Poe stared at the information on the screen, only understanding a fraction of what he read. What appeared to be a public messaging system in a constant state of moderation was in fact multiple threads of terminated conversations. Poe realized as he scrolled through the grayed out postings that whatever security clearance Mitaka’s credentials provided allowed him to view the removed postings, and that these aborted messages were in fact a reflection of the current state of the Order as a whole. It was falling apart from the inside, just as Armitage suspected.

Poe scrolled through multiple reports of strange disappearances, complaints regarding rash strings of managerial changes, food shortages and water rationing, and, most prolific of all, a rumor that General Hux was regrouping Order forces. It was a thread that surfaced over and over. At first every couple days, but more recently every several _hours -_ threads that never made it beyond the initial posting, shut down as quickly as they were begun.

All these threads had begun before Armitage’s message ever made it to their datapads. Armitage, who still had not revealed his identity as the publisher of _Force_ , or the person behind the message to the greater Order. Armitage, who had no idea how critical a role he actually played in the lives of not just those under his command on the Finalizer, but all the First Order.

He knew Leia should be made aware, and Armitage. Most of all Armitage.

Probably not the Senators.

The mechanical _whir_ of a droid walking by nearly jolted Poe from his seat. _Their eyes are everywhere_. Poe froze, lifted his head, caught how the droid watched him.

Carefully, he laid the datapad face down upon the table.

“Mitaka, If I send BB-8 to you, would you let it copy this data? Hux needs to see this.” Poe slid the datapad towards him, suddenly too aware of the critical nature of the information stored on it. He didn’t trust himself enough to handle it properly. Not at the moment. Not while his head was still elsewhere, somewhere the bigger picture didn’t reach.

“Of course, Sir.” Mitaka might have saluted if his hands weren’t busy tucking his datapad into his coat pocket.

“Are you sure you want him to see that?” Phasma’s voice broke through the cold tension, and Poe felt the sharp edge of her words cut quick.

 _Of course he has to see it._ “Why wouldn’t I?”

Phasma regarded him, mouth frozen in a perpetual frown, eyes as immutable as ice. Only then did Poe notice the dark circles under her eyes, as if something had kept her up through a sleepless night, a worry that harried as deep as that which stole so many of Poe’s own recent nights.

Her words, when they came, soured all the hope that Poe had held.

“You don’t think he’ll go back, with everything that is happening here? You don’t think he’ll re-consolidate the power he lost, if the Order is so ready to serve him, while the New Republic is threatening him with death?”

No, Poe hadn’t thought of that.

“You think he will,” Poe did not frame it as a question. Phasma’s expression closed over whatever answer she may give. “Why are you telling me this, and not him?”

A flicker of something passed her face, too fast for Poe to follow, but then she pushed it out a sigh alongside words, “Despite it all, he’s happy. The happiest I’ve ever seen him.” The emotion was there, if buried beneath her facade of calm, and when her answer finally came, it shattered over Poe in shards. “But if he thinks his survival depends on it, then he’ll do whatever it takes.”

 _If the Order comes for me, I would not return to them._ Words spoken from the safety of a wind sheared mountain top. Words that had brought Poe so much joy that he had been blinded to the encroaching danger, the heavy hand of fate’s shadowed approach.

Words spoken _before_.

Quietly, honestly, Poe said, “You know I can’t keep this from him.” But oh, how he wished they had kept it from _him_.

Across the room, he saw a familiar shape. Armitage, tray in hand, walking side by side with Rose. His head was turned down, his shoulders stooped, mouth turned up in a shadow of a smile as he responded to something she said. Something that made Rose laugh, ringing like crystal, clear and pure. Poe watched as that shadow smile alighted into a shape, radiance softened by the crinkle of his eyes, the pink of his cheeks.

Watched him beam brighter still, when he lifted his eyes and met Poe’s.

 _Don’t take this from me_ , he had asked that morning. Now Poe realized what is was he had to give up.

-

“Are you positive you want me here?” He asked Poe again, even as he was pushed down into a bench before the comms terminal.

“Armitage, he already knows about you, so stop worrying.” Poe was waving someone over, Ko Connix, if the embroidered name on her jumpsuit was accurate. Not everyone’s were, Hux had learned weeks ago. “Kaydel, could we get some privacy maybe? Just thirty minutes?”

“You can have the next hour, I’ve got nothing scheduled until this evening,” her voice was accommodating but her body language was stiff. “Is it confidential, do you need me to encode the transmission?”

“No, no, just the regular precautions are fine,” Poe’s voice was genial. Him and this woman knew each other well, though nothing of their interaction suggested anything more than a friendly history. Still, Hux could not help thinking of the aide. Hux had never considered himself a jealous person, but now that his and Poe’s _relationship_ was in the open, to be judged and juried by the whole of the Galaxy, he found himself feeling far more…possessive.

“Alright, I’ll leave you to it.” She was pulling at the cuff of her sleeve, a nervous gesture Hux could only attribute to his presence. “He was pretty insistent that you call him back this morning, so if the signal gives you trouble try it a few times. The Senate’s flagship has let us tap their antennae so I don’t think you’ll have a problem.” The smile she gave Poe still lingered as her eyes drifted over to Hux, and there was an awkward moment where she caught herself staring. “I, uh, I’ll be waiting in the control room, if you need me.”

The hallway seemed unnaturally bright, when the door slid open to let Connix out. Hux blinked against the burned out wedge shape, momentarily blinded to the dark of the comms room, the hazy blue glow of the ambient transmission controls slow to reemerge. It lit Poe in strange shapes. Deepening his cheekbones, darkening the shadows under his eyes, limning the strong cut of his jaw with a sharp edge. Like a spotlight shed on all the unspoken things Hux knew Poe to be harboring.

Something had changed since lunch. Hux had not thought it was possible for Poe to touch him any more than he already did, but he’d somehow found a way. It was as if a dam had been opened now that the greater Galaxy knew of their relationship, and Poe no longer had to hold back his touches. But there was a newfound desperation to it, buried beneath the affection. A hand to Hux’s thigh, constant in its grip. Fingers tracing his wrist, ready to grab hold. And a hovering proximity, like he could physically shield Hux from the danger that stalked him. The touches were welcome, but telling of Poe’s internal mental state.

But it was not so much the change to Poe’s touches that worried Hux. It was the way Poe now watched him, all honed focus juxtaposed against a delicate scrutiny. Hux did not understand it. Did not think it could be the exposure of their relationship that would shake Poe’s mental state so much. There was something else on Poe’s mind, and Hux would find out _what_.

But not now. Right now, despite Hux’s protestations otherwise, they were going to call Poe’s _father_.

“You ready then? I promise this will go fine.”

There, seated at the comms station, Hux met Poe’s blue sparked eyes, allowed his hand to be taken, his palm to be smoothed over. He had already tried telling Poe that maybe they should wait to do this, should allow his fate to be decided before dragging any of them through the turmoil of this declaration. Poe’s father had waited this long, what was another day, two, maybe a week, at most.

Certainly, it would save Poe a lot of trouble.

And of course heartbreak.

“I’m ready, yes,” he said, though Hux wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready, was certain he had never been ready for any of _this_. How Poe expected one father’s hate could be traded for another’s love, he may never understand. But he would try.

One more brief touch of their lips and Poe was drawing away, attention turned to the holo-projector before them. Into the console he entered the call coordinates, and then all they had left to do was wait. The projector was like any other Hux had seen. Older, certainly, than those equipped on the Finalizer, but perfectly adequate for deep space communication. The depressed discus mounted within the terminal frame blinked to life in a gentle glow, and Hux was surprised to see only a little bit of white light breaking through the blue, the interstellar turbulence he expected coming in quick fleeting spurts.

The call rang on, nearly twenty seconds passing before Hux’s anxiety got the best of him and he shifted out of the cone of the holorecorder. Poe wanted him to meet his father, but Hux could not shake the feeling that he was an intruder here. That somehow, Poe’s father would not be meeting a full grown man, but a scared little boy. Poe smiled at him, a small thing, understanding, and Hux resisted the urge to roll his eyes. He knew he was acting foolish, and his behavior did not deserve the sympathy Poe seemed so earnest to give. He almost said as much, got as far as opening his mouth, when the call connected.

Hux’s mouth clicked shut over the words, breath catching in his throat as a face coalesced into the three dimensional cone of the projector. There was a slight delay in the transmission, evident in the staggered cast of light, little blips of a broken transmission due to the great distance between them. But nothing prevented Hux from seeing how Poe’s eyes lit at the image of his father.

He awash with blues, looking younger than Hux knew him to be, as Poe’s father would have be almost as old as his own, were Brendol Hux still alive. Early sixties, likely; youthful enough in the grand scheme of a human’s lifespan, but older than the smoothed out projection before them.

His voice, when it came, sounded so much like Poe’s.

“Hey son, you’re looking well, it’s good to see you.”

“You’re looking good too, dad, sorry I missed your call earlier,” Poe’s grin was full, mirthful with genuine joy, and Hux could not understand how he could be so at ease. “Things have been kinda crazy here the last few weeks.”

“Are they ever not crazy?” And then Poe’s father was _laughing_. “If it’s anything like what I remember, crazy was the minimum operating standard.”

This time it was Poe who laughed, and suddenly, Hux felt entirely out of his depth. This wasn’t a father and a son speaking, these were friends, with a mutual respect that had nothing to do with familial relationships. “Let’s just say I’ll take this kind of crazy over most.”

“I can only imagine.” Poe’s father’s smile was big, his eyes kind, his hair dark, but the shapes wrong. No, not _wrong_ , but different from Poe’s. His mother, Hux realized, Poe took after his mother. “But things seem to be winding down, at least?”

“You could say that,” and here Poe’s voice dropped in cadence, just a little. “Honestly, I feel like I’ve just traded one kind of crazy for another.”

“Believe me, son. That never really changes. Although, maybe I take that back, because you know what’s not crazy? My life. I’ve been spending more time in town now than I ever have, talking to old Barnie just isn’t the same as talking with a person, let me tell you. Maybe we could trade places for a little bit. I can relive my youth and you can take a vacation.”

“Staycation, you mean. You just want me to come home and watch the farm,” Poe’s laughter came from a deep place, somewhere Hux had caught glimpses of, but only in those moments spent alone, against a mountainside, alongside his speeder. “It’s a tempting offer, I could use a vacation. But I’m glad you’re getting out more, I’m sure Barnie is just as tired of you.”

They both laughed then, the sounds layering atop one another, and in this, Hux decided, Poe was _everything_ like his father.

There was a code in the way they spoke, how they buried the details that would give them away. It made perfect sense. The Resistance had gone so long flying under the First Order’s radar, any transmissions like this could have been captured. And while the trace route would be hidden from their slicers, with the right amount of information assumptions could be made. Poe and his father were well-practiced in their communication. Giving so much and yet nothing away, as naturally as if they were speaking across a table from one another, not over lightyears of dangerous space.

“So what’s going on with you? Got anything new going on?” And the catch in Poe’s posture was more telling than the falter in his smile. This was it, the moment Hux had always expected, but had hoped would never come.

“That’s not what you normally ask,” Poe said, smile tentatively crafted from the shadows cast by his words.

The silence from Poe’s father was long, stretching thin alongside Hux’s nerves. Finally, Poe’s father responded, “I don’t want to pry, seems like you’re dealing with enough of that already.”

“ _Shit_ , dad.” When Poe broke, it was a beautiful thing, even though Hux knew that was not a healthy way to approach _anything_. But as Poe’s hand found his hair, as his fingers pushed through it and his shoulders collapsed, Hux could not help but _want_. “I only just found out about the holos this morning, after your call. I’m sorry for not telling you sooner, I didn’t want you to find out like this.”

“Is he there with you now?” Hux didn’t think his stomach could plummet any further.

Poe looked at him as he responded, “Yeah, he’s here.” All Hux wanted was to crawl into Poe’s arms and hide himself there.

“Is he shy or am I just that intimidating?”

Poe’s eyes had not left him, held Hux steady, as he said, “Both, I think. We’ve been dealing with a lot these past few days.” His smile was small, but it was there. Hux held onto it.

“I’m sorry, for that. From what I’ve seen, I can understand why you didn’t call sooner.” And Hux did not know if the frustration he thought he heard was because of him or what Poe’s father knew was an uncomfortable situation for his son. “Like I said, I didn’t want to pry, but I wanted to call and let you know that-” and here the silence lasted only long enough for Poe to look back at his father’s projection. “-I love you, son, and whatever makes you happy, makes me happier.”

“Thanks, dad. That-” Poe cut himself off, and again Hux saw him break, resisted the urge to reach out and take him into his arms, “-that means a lot, right now. I love you too.”

“Well, I’m not gonna keep you, son,” Poe’s father sounded kind, understanding. Hux didn’t know how Poe’s father could be so…loving. “Call me again when you can, don’t be a stranger, I’m here whenever you need me.”

Hux could not quite put it all together, how easily this had gone, how accepting Poe’s father seemed to be.

“I promise I won’t wait so long to call next, it was good talking to you, dad. Thank you, for everything.”

There was a glimmer in Poe’s eyes when the transmission cut out, twinkling like a distant star. Belatedly, he realized they were tears.

“Told you that would go well,” Poe affirmed as he reached out and touched Hux’s wrist, dark eyes sparking blue in the dim light.

Hux just wanted to touch Poe’s cheek. So he did, his hand lifting to brush fingertips down Poe’s jaw, and then he did it again, again, and again. The tears never fell, but Hux traced the path they would have taken, followed the invisible lines in Poe’s cracked facade. The call to his father had taken more than Hux realized. And when Poe’s eyes hooded, and he tilted his chin into Hux’s touch, his absent-minded smile barely hiding that elusive secret that Hux had been chasing since lunch, Hux watched Poe break, and he thought _how beautiful_.

“Your father cares deeply for you,” he finally acknowledged, to Poe, to himself. “You two share your laugh.”

As if to prove his point, Poe let out a chuckle, “You’re not the first to notice that. Everyone says I look like my mom but sound like my dad.”

“Unlikely, I imagine she was very a beautiful woman,” Hux sneered, but let the mirth spill free in his eyes, in the touch of his fingers to Poe’s skin. He let his fingers trail down Poe’s bared neck, his collarbone, his chest. Poe’s fingers at his wrist had turned into a grip, but Hux was not going anywhere.

Poe’s laugh choked off into a sputter, “Okay Hugs, I’ll never accuse you of giving me an ego again.” Poe was sliding in close, the thumb over his wrist now stroking in soft circles. Hux shivered. “Thanks for doing this with me. It would have been hard, without you here.”

“Your father and I did not even speak.” Hux placed his palm over Poe’s chest, fingers finding the edge of his shirt where skin met fabric, over the beating thunder of his heart, “But he obviously trusts you, and your decisions. It’s remarkable, really. You two share more than your laugh, recklessness must also run in the family.”

“Yeah.” Poe’s eyes searched his, “You love it, though.”

“I do,” Hux breathed.

They were kissing again before either could stop it. Somehow, Hux ended up straddled over the bench while Poe’s hands slid up his thighs, the grip on his wrist surrendered to this greater touch. Hux chased the kiss, cupping Poe’s face and sinking into the sensations. And Poe welcomed it, let Hux touch him like this, in a semi-public space, Connix able to see everything through the control room security cams, able to record every moment as well as any droid.

“Your friend might be watching,” he breathed over Poe’s lips, when Poe’s hands found his hips and gripped tight.

“Who, Kaydel?” Poe murmured back. “She won’t care. And I wouldn’t care even if she did.”

Hux’s breath stuttered at that admission. He knew, logically, that they should care - now more than ever before. But he also knew they were already on borrowed time, and he could not bring himself to deny either of them. As exposed as they were, the kiss deepened, became exploratory. When Hux slipped his tongue along his lower lip, Poe opened to him, and he moaned for him, and he gave up something more than his control. Hux directed this kiss, taking the lead in a way that still felt new, but natural. But as much control as Poe gave up, Hux still felt him there, at his edges, guiding him through, drawing him closer, encouraging him further into their kiss.

That was where he finally found it. There, at the edge of Poe’s touch, in the press of his hands, was that brush of desperation that had not been there this morning. It festered beneath Poe’s skin, a rot that clung to him like the withered remains of the Academy had. A pestilence that infected far more than Poe’s touch. Hux could not help but think something was _wrong_. Because Hux could ignore the stares, he could ignore the words, he could even ignore the judgment, for Poe’s sake and for his own. What he could not ignore was the unease chafing Poe’s touch, not if it was going to poison every moment they had left.

“Poe,” Hux said as he pulled back. He held Poe’s face steady as he searched his face, for a clue, for an explanation, “Tell me what is wrong.”

And he saw when it flashed across his features, like a spark, a strike, flinting in the dark. Gone as quickly as it appeared, only to surface again, more slowly. A secret exposed in the form of resolve.

“There is something I have to tell you,” Poe’s voice was quiet, as dim as the ambient glow of the console.

Hux could not stop the dread from rising, wondered how he had held it back for so long. “What? What is happening?” The beat of his heart pumped into a race, and his hands trembled where they held Poe’s cheeks. Was this it, was his fate decided? Had the Senate already passed their judgment? Had Poe found out and not told him? “Poe, _tell me_.”

What Poe told him was the last thing Hux ever expected to hear.

“Mitaka gained access to the Order’s net yesterday. He pulled data from their internal messaging servers, threads of conversations that had been deleted by their system, rumors that have been spreading,” Poe held his eyes while he spoke, searching Hux just like Hux searched him, both seeking something too elusive to see. “They were about you, about how you’re still alive-” Poe cut off, his swallow thick, his gaze heavy, “-about how you’re regrouping Order forces.”

Hux thought - he thought Poe _understood,_ “Poe, you know that’s not true-”

“Yeah, I know,” Poe assured, and Hux grasped at that fleeting relief, only for it to slip away as Poe said, “but it could be. You could, if it meant you would survive.” Poe said the words gently, but the weight of them slammed into Hux. Punched a hole right through his heart.

“No,” Hux whispered, “I won’t.” He _couldn't_.

“You could save them and yourself.”

“Poe, stop this,” he said, even as his voice broke alongside his heart.

“Armitage.” Poe’s hand slipped over the back of his neck, pulled him in close, “Armitage, I don’t want anyone getting their hands on you.” Hux’s head rang with those words, familiar and distant, affirmations made over the burning coals of the man he once was, “If that means-” Poe broke off, lip caught in his teeth, eyes caught on Hux’s, “-if I can’t protect you, you have to protect yourself.”

“By rejoining the First Order?” his voice, so shrill, broke over the sound of his shallow breath, “Would you follow me if I did, would you give up everything you have up to chase me into the unknown?” Hux knew the answer, did not expect Poe to actually voice it.

“You know I couldn’t.” And somehow those words hurt far more than anything else ever had.

“Then why do you think that I _can_?” His voice had risen, high with emotion, as he drew away and encountered Poe’s hold on him. The pressure of Poe’s hand over his neck felt like the press of the gallows; one death traded for another. “I can’t do that Poe. I’m not that man any longer.”

Poe’s stare was heavy, _thick_ , desperation chased away in favor of a stalwart determination. “I think he’s still there. And I think he was a good man, despite the things he did. And I think he would do a better job of it, this time around.”

Hux felt as his mind distended, stretched thin to breaking, disbelief acidic on the back of his tongue. “Stop this. Please, Poe, don’t do this-” Tears were falling now, hot and stinging, as painful as the words he found himself speaking, “-if living means I’d lose you-” the rest was swallowed by the sound of his breath, a _sob_.

“I know,” Poe’s hand smoothed down his neck, wrapped around his shoulders, pulled him into a tight hold. “I’m not saying it’s our only option, but it’s there, and it’s-” Poe paused, “-and I wouldn’t blame you, if you chose it.”

“I _won’t_ ,” wretched and ragged, he made those words real. Poe’s shoulder was solid beneath him, and Hux let himself fall against it, burrowed into the warm folds of his shirt. A second arm wrapped around him, and suddenly Hux was being pulled flush against Poe.

 _Why can’t I have this?_ Hux wondered, as a hand smoothed down his back.

 _You know why_ , his mind answered, when another hand stroked gently through his hair.

Poe’s touch shattered Hux into tiny fragments, all the pieces he thought he’d found places for scattering with the realization that Poe would do this for him, let him go, if it meant he would live. But Hux didn’t know what living meant, now, if he could not do it with Poe at his side.

He imagined this was how Poe must feel, when confronted with the idea of life after his death.

As much as he might want this, this life with Poe, and as fooled as he was to believe it might be his to have, when under the press of Poe’s hands, Hux understood now, that he was not made for these touches. He was cut from a different veil, and fate would not ever let him forget that.

An emotion emerged, unspeakable in name, but familiar in tenor. A furor that boiled so hot it struck through his vision - bright beams of rage, burning and blinding.

“ _I hate them_ ,” he snarled, words dripping with his tears, seething with his blood, as the image of Ofant was cut through with red. “ _I hate them all._ ”

Poe only held him tighter; steady against him, accepting his rage, his hatred, with a grounded hold, a gentle touch. “I know, I know,” Poe whispered into his hair, while Hux’s fingers twisted so tightly into his shirt he was sure it would tear. “It’s okay to feel this way, it’s okay to be angry.”

 _I’ll kill them_ , he didn’t say, because despite his rage, Hux was no longer _that_ man.

But his shape was still there, burned black against the brightness, and Hux remembered how he fit.

So when the comms room door opened and he and Poe drew apart, when one of the figures silhouetted against the bright light that blinded the deeper darkness cocooning them announced: _There you are, what impeccable timing,_ that Hux found himself emerging half-formed, but fully prepared, for the words that came next.

“General Hux, it seems your plan has been a success. We’ve just received an encoded message from one General Parnadee, and she is requesting an immediate holo. I was hoping you might do us the honor of speaking on the New Republic’s behalf.”

The dark of the room may have hidden the trace of emotion on his face, but nothing could hide him from Organa’s specter stare, and still she smiled, as she extended her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, whatever will happen next? Hopefully not another chapter count increase, because I keep lying to y'all and promising this time is the last...
> 
> This chapter felt so transient to write. It really is just a bridge to next part of the story that I am super excited to tackle. I probably lost a little bit of steam at the end because, let me tell you, real life is Crazy. All I want is a 6 month sabbatical where I can transform into the hermit I know I am meant to be. Instead, I will keep working 60 hour weeks while writing until the wee hours of the morning and subject y'all to my increasingly non-sensical word vomit.


	11. Operation Sunrise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings this chapter!
> 
> Not that Star Wars has ever been what I would consider hard sci-fi, but my version of hyperspace travel is based on a theory of physics regarding what hyperspeed might actually look like if we ever achieve it. Basically, that a ship would create a worm hole that would allow it to enter and exit hyperspace, where hyperspace is the travel lanes ships use to get around. Not that any of that actually matters to the story, of course :)

His uniform cut strange shapes from his body. The shoulders were too wide and the waist too thin. It broadened his chest and smoothed out the softness of his stomach, accentuating a strength that had never been of his body, but his mind. A two hit knockout. That was what Phasma called the First Order. The first punch always the military, an indelible physical force that would bring the Galaxy to its knees. Then came the intellectual ingenuity. The brilliance that would rebuild the Galaxy into something greater; a technological achievement born of the greatest minds the Galaxy had to offer. Two parts of a machine that could create as well as it could destroy.

Or so, that had been the First Order Hux had believed in. Envisioned, as it were. But then Palpatine had reared his head and revealed that the rebuilding would never come. That the First Order was never meant to be anything more than the strong-armed abuser that would bully the Galaxy into submission, all on behalf of a Force-cursed ghost.

But they had almost done it. The Galaxy _had_ been brought to its knees. First with Starkiller, and then with the swift actions of his fleet after the Resistance’s defeat on Crait. The Order had snatched up Outer Core worlds where they could, expanding their mining forces into the rich space that had been denied them for so many decades, strengthening allegiances and forging trade routes among the remnants of the New Republic. Setting the keystones in place that would support the superstructure of a First Order Empire that would encompass all of the Galaxy, not just the privileged few of the Core.

But it had all come crashing down. And Hux could not place his finger on when it had started to go wrong. Had instead accepted that it had _always_ been wrong, that _he_ had always been wrong: wrong in what he believed was right. Wrong in what he believed was the truth. Wrong in what he believed was best for himself and the people of the First Order.

And now, once again, he had the audacity to think he knew what was right for the people of the Order, when he didn’t even know what was right for himself, anymore.

But, Hux thought he knew what _wasn’t_ right, and surely, that must be a start.

“Four hundred and twenty two thousand eight hundred and thirty nine people across two Star Destroyers. The _Conqueror_ is at full operating capacity, all eleven ion engines on line, and housing approximately two thirds of the population, while the _Absolution_ is operating at twenty five percent, only two functional ion engines, and housing the remaining third of the population.” The reports Parnadee had sent ahead of their rendezvous were more than worrying, and as Hux recited the list of critical ship status reports, the weight in his gut sank deeper. Hands clasped behind his back, he wished he could loosen his collar, remove his belt, something to assuage the claustrophobic sensation of the world closing in on him.

“If those numbers sound high it’s because they are,” Hux continued to the gathered group. The war table aboard the _Swiftly Striking_ was not like Leia’s war table. Here there were more holos than bodies, most of the participants in this “rescue mission” hailing from Coruscant or Chandrila, Mithra having called in the support of her peers to assist in the organization of so many refugees. Seven New Republic ships slipped through hyperspace, including the _Swiftly Striking_ , the flagship that had brought the five Senators to Ajan Kloss’ doorstep just over a week ago.

A silver lining, if there was to be one. That the New Republic was intending to be true to their word alleviated one of the worries that had plagued Hux for the last week. But he understood what this aid meant. Understood that nothing was ever free, that this alliance of good will would be paid for, and he was the price. There would not be a trial. The past week had been the trial. And Hux supposed it wasn’t so much if he would die, but how, and hopefully his cooperation would at least earn him the swiftness of a quick death.

That is, unless he fled with the First Order. Unless he turned coat yet again - not just on the New Republic, or the Resistance and the people he had finally begun to understand - but on a future he thought bright enough to sell to the remnants of the Order. A path towards prosperity within the world they’d been taught to abhor.

“Resurgent class destroyers are designed to sustain a population of approximately one hundred thousand comfortably. At full operating capacity, mind you. Most are only ever crewed at seventy to eighty percent of their potential. With only two functioning ion engines and a full crew, the _Absolution_ will have diverted all resources to life sustaining systems. The _Conqueror_ will be strained for resources at over double capacity, but with all engines online they should have managed with a rationing program and a lights out protocol.” Hux looked around the room as he spoke, noting the faces of the people who were paying attention, and those who were only there to stare. Hux had grown used to the stares, a long time ago.

“While the reports Parnadee has provided are adequate regarding population and ship statuses, the most critical components have been left out: medical reports of the population, food production, water recycling, and health breakdowns of their sick and injured. Who needs priority extraction? Who needs immediate surgical care? Who is pregnant, dying, experiencing a mental health crisis?” Hux closed his eyes, pausing as he gathered in his mind the vision of how these ships would look, when they came upon them. “These two ships have been dark for the last eight standard weeks, having suffered losses already due to First Order in-fighting. We need to be prepared for the worst, but whether the worst is a population simply suffering from a little scurvy and the strain of sleeping atop their fellow crew member, or a humanitarian crisis of an epidemic proportion, I can not say.”

During their call Parnadee had painted a vague picture of the living conditions aboard the _Conqueror_ , focusing more on the state of their ships and the logistics of a rendezvous. They had been in hiding for months, tucked amongst an asteroid field on the outskirts of the Outer Rim after an altercation with Order forces under the command of Captain Peavey. Holos had not been possible due to the lightyears of space between them and the security protocols in place, but her voice had been hers, if worn with exhaustion. And Hux had not realized until that moment what it would mean to finally speak with the very people he had been trying to reach for so many weeks. Hux had been glad that a holo had not been possible, because he was sure Parnadee would have recognized the emotion on his face, the tears in his eyes, the lifting of the weight on his heart that had somehow grown so overwhelming.

Because Hux was here to help his people. And while Parnadee may still view those aboard as her crew, and her ship as a ship, Hux knew better. He knew better because he had been through this before. Had seen the way this would play out. Knew what happened when a ship gave itself up for its crew, and the state of mind that crew would be subject to, the grief of loosing not just one’s home, but everything they had ever known.

And he knew what it felt like to have hope be the enemy standing across the battlefield. Where surviving meant climbing out of the safety of the trench you had dug for yourself, and living meant charging head first into no man’s land, a prayer and a plea your only defense against everything you had ever held true.

“Parnadee assures that both ships have enough fuel for a jump into outer core space, but I believe we should be prepared to send ships here to extract what crew we can before attempting a journey of that length. Fuel or not, the _Absolution_ is in critical condition and I would not trust it to make a successful jump of that duration, lest it come apart in hyperspace. A ship of that size leaving behind debris in the trade lanes would be catastrophic for more than just those aboard.”

Ofant caught his attention from across the war table, dark eyes humorless despite the perpetual smile on his face. “I’m still unconvinced this isn’t all a ruse to lure us into a vulnerable position.”

This wasn’t a trap. This was nearly four Star Destroyers worth of men and women who had been hiding in deep space for over two months. This was two ships full of a population of people living on top of one another in less than ideal conditions who had thought themselves abandoned to death up until several days ago. These were people who needed more than help, they needed hope, and they needed a future that was more than surviving until the next day.

“It’s not a trap,” was the only response Hux dare.

Ofant’s smile cut deep, right to the core of Hux’s greatest fear. “To be fair, I argue that remains to be seen.”

Hux was not a liar. He refused to believe he had sold his people a pipe dream.

No, Hux had chosen to trust Organa and the Resistance with his most precious parts. Not himself, but his crew, his people, his _family_. And then he had made the decision to extend that trust to what was left of the New Republic. Had believed in their promise to help not because he trusted the good of their will, but because the price they asked for had been high enough to assure his people’s value.

A sacrifice, one worthy of the gift it begot. And sacrifice in service to the greater prosperity of the Order was no strange concept to Armitage Hux. So much, that he had spent his life preparing for its inevitability by never building any attachments for himself. From the stark simplicity of his quarters aboard the Finalizer, where only an ice blue couch stood out from the glassy grays and blacks of the Order issued appointments, to the lack of personal affects, where switching ships meant towing along a single suit bag of uniforms; Hux had never needed much, and he had held onto even less. The only aberration to this philosophy taking shape as a codepad harboring the whimsical dream of a dying adolescence. An indulgence Hux had allowed himself out of spite for his father and some washed out idea that even _Force_ was not actually his, but something he had created for the Order.

Because if Hux had nothing worth loosing, then surely death on behalf of the Order would be but a brightness against the blighted wraith of the Galaxy at large.

And that would have still been true, if not for Poe Dameron.

“We are seven warships transporting a total of fifty X-wings, with the Millennium Falcon as an escort, and a fleet of five Resistance ships on standby only a short jump away,” Poe spoke up. “Preliminary scouting of the ships location confirms the details we’ve received from General Parnadee. But if there is trouble, we’re prepared.” Leia had passed full General responsibilities onto Poe, abdicating the position to instead take up a role as a negotiator on the New Republic’s behalf. It was nothing but a game of shadows, but one Hux understood. It was the same game he played by donning his uniform.

A uniform that somehow felt as ill-fitting as the Resistance hand-me-downs. Here, amongst a table of New Republic senators and their naval officers, only Poe and Organa did not set their sights on him like a target to shoot down. The general stripes felt heavy on his cuff, a beacon to his past Hux understood he would never shake, and a lie that exposed him for the fraud he was: no longer a First Order general, yet the only part he was allowed to play. But if there was one thing Hux was grateful for, it was that Ofant’s droids had been left behind. At least the production of his demise would not be broadcast across the Galaxy alongside the rest of his final hours.

“I for one am hopeful for a peaceful convention with this General Parnadee,” Jain Mithra spoke with the same cadence of authority Hux remembered from his interrogation. She stood beside Organa, separate from her fellow Senators across the table. “And if we determine the _Absolution_ can not make the jump safely I am confident we can organize an evacuation.” This she said to the holograms, the captains of the accompanying ships and a handful of Senators from Core worlds who had volunteered to take in refugees. The reservations Hux felt regarding handing his people over to the New Republic to be split up and assimilated reared ugly in his mind. But in this, there were no other options. It’s not as if they could live on these two ships in orbit of a friendly celestial body. No, this was the only way forward. The very thing he had asked for, months ago, when he sat at another war table, begging for the help of his enemy.

“Agreed. That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Not just to see through the end of this war, but to help these people?” It was curious, how when Organa spoke the already quiet room became that much more silent. “The dismantling of the First Order is the end of the Empire’s reign, and the cleaning of a wound that has been left to fester for far too long. Rather than making the same mistakes of our past, today we’re taking a step down a new path, one of unification. I urge everyone here to approach these negotiations with an open mind and an open heart. These people are our kin. Let us not perpetuate the same mistakes we’ve already made once.”

The hushed murmurs of, what Hux hoped, were accord, signified the end of the discussion. Organa closed the meeting with a time line of events, where in four hours they would reach the jump point at the agreed meeting coordinates. He would board the Millennium Falcon along with Organa, Mithra and Ofant, to meet Parnadee on an abandoned mining colony that housed a now defunct New Republic naval base. It was as neutral a ground as all parties could agree to, where negotiations could take place outside the the threat of an enemy star system. Hux suspected all involved understood the word _negotiation_ was being used loosely. This was a transfer of power, authority. Parnadee had nothing worthwhile to offer but the symbolic surrender of the First Order. But there was a ceremony to these things that Hux respected, an honor paid to the opposing force, where a final meeting on equal ground could pave the way forward with respect rather than resentment.

As the holos flickered out and the assembled cast of players disbursed, Poe met him where he stood. Hux allowed his hands to be taken even as he felt Ofant’s eyes upon them. From where he stood speaking to one of the other Senators across the table, Ofant openly stared. Hux hardly cared, anymore.

“You feeling okay?” Poe asked softly, his fingers playing over the seams of his gloves. Poe’s dark eyes swallowed him whole, asking so many more questions than the one he voiced.

“I’m concerned,” Hux admitted, not easily. “Tensions are high. So much can go wrong with one misunderstanding.” Not to mention his concern that _Ofant_ would be a part of the negotiations. That his despise for Hux would spill over to the whole of the First Order felt obvious; and yet, his clout among the Senators secured his place in the discussions.

“Don’t think of it as a negotiation, think of it as speaking with an old colleague. Parnadee will be happy to see a familiar face, and Leia will have your back, no matter what happens, you know that right?” _No matter what happens_. Hux swallowed, uneasy by far more than Ofant’s attention. When the hold Poe had on Hux’s hands tugged him round, so his back was to Ofant, Hux knew the attention had not been overlooked.

“Yes, I understand.” Not quite the truth, but close enough that Hux did not feel like a liar. He licked his lips, meet Poe’s dark eyes. “I wish you were going to be there.”

“You know I can’t,” Poe said softly enough that he could not be overhead. Softly enough that Hux could not identify the emotion that colored his voice. “Ofant is watching, he’s the only problem I can for-see.”

“I can handle him,” said Hux, a little too quickly.

He would have to handle him. Ofant had not stopped watching Hux for what felt like days, their orbits having collided over and over again during the mission preparations. That Ofant was plain with his disgust almost felt refreshing; anything was better than the knife sharp smile of the friendly facade he had once donned. But now the weight of his attention unbalanced Hux. And his precarious walk across the tightrope of First Order general and Resistance defector felt all the more tenuous. Ofant disturbed what little center Hux had left, and soon he would not even have Poe to lean on.

Poe, who had been stalwart in his presence at Hux’s side, even after he planted the insidious seed of Hux’s escape. They’d barely spoken of the idea since the comms room, but the conversation hung over them like the bloated clouds of a building storm.

Hux had wondered when it was that survival had given way to integrity. Wondered if the integrity had always been there, hidden beneath the pall of surviving. Because Hux knew he would not betray his word. The oath he had made to Organa had been in good faith, the offer of his life to the Senators honest in a way so much of his life had never been. But he could not help but know Poe’s thoughts. Not when every touch of his hands felt like a goodbye. Hux did not understand what it meant that Poe believed he would leave. Tried not to let that hurt, in the way that his unspoken goodbyes hurt. Whether Hux left with the First Order or stayed and died at the hands of the New Republic, each led to the same conclusion: that these few hours he and Poe had together would be their last. Hux wanted to make the most of them. Poe could not bring himself to even talk about it.

The hold on his hands tugged him forward, and suddenly Poe was close enough Hux could feel the heat of his body. Between them, their hands had tangled into knots.

“We’ve got a few hours, wanna find somewhere private?” Poe didn’t try to hide his intentions, and Hux decided if this was what Poe needed right now, he could not deny him.

“Don’t you have preparations to take care of?” And truthfully, Hux could not think of many other ways he would want to spend his final hours of freedom. It was either that or stew in the miasma of his anxiety.

“That’s the beauty of being general, delegation,” Poe laughed, made it sound easy and light, as if the shroud of fate wasn’t closing over them as they stood there.

Hux’s thoughts became all too real when a shadow fell over their joined hands. Ofant stood off to the side, looming taller than either of them, body cast black against the white walls of the New Republic ship.

“Ah, if it’s not the Hero of the Resistance and his Starkiller. Discussing the intimacies of strategy I see?”

Hux stayed silent, refusing to look at Ofant. Poe was weaker to the half-hearted jab, his glare as withering as the pull of his frown, the turn of his voice.

“What do you want, Ofant?” Hux felt the slip of Poe’s hands as Ofant stared openly at them.

“Just checking in. I thought General Hux and I might have a private discussion regarding the negotiations, but I see he is currently _tied up_.”

Hux tightened his hold, thinking, _don’t let go,_ said instead, “Ignore him, Poe.”

 _Yeah, I know_ , scrawled across Poe’s expression. His hands, where they held Hux’s, loosened and then squeezed, until finally Poe came to his decision, “Come on.”

Hux did not sigh, but he did let his relief edge into the trembling grip he had on Poe’s hands, when he was pulled away from Ofant. Poe steered him towards the door, past the New Republic guards stationed there, not letting him go. Never letting him go, Hux dared to hope. “Let’s go find Finn and Rose.” _Safety in numbers_. Hux allowed himself to be removed from the room, even as his father’s voice smoldered hot in the back of his mind. _Retreat is for the weak, stand your ground and fight, boy._ But Hux had very little fight left in him, anymore.

When the whisper quiet _whoosh_ of the door sealed them off from Ofant, it was all Hux could do to keep from finally expelling his sigh. Before him, the hallway stretched long and thin, too bright under the artificial florescent lights, so different from Ajan Kloss’s sun. The white walls closed in on him, funneling him down a road he had never taken, towards an end he could not see. And as Hux walked, Poe at his side, Ofant at his back, Hux wondered if this was how the Finalizer felt: punching through the long stretch of hyperspace, hunter at her back, crew at her side, the countdown of her existence spent in grim propulsion towards the inevitable.

-

“Rose, just surrender already, this game is going on three standard.”

From where Poe stood, he could see the board was stacked in Finn’s favor. The spread of pieces had Rose on the retreat, line of defense crippled and only two monsters left, one at full health, the other near death.

“Finn, you’ll have to pry victory from my Monnok’s cold dead claws, there is no way in Sith hell I am surrendering,” Rose pouted as she slid her mostly dead Monnok across the board, out of movement range of Finn’s army of four.

“Oh my god, you’re just going to keep evading me until we get to the drop point aren’t you?” Finn’s groan could have curled flesh from bone.

“Yeah, probably, unless I get bored. In which case I’ll just cut the power to the table.”

“ _Stars_ , you’re such a sore loser.”

“You’re a sore winner. Remember what happened the last time we played? On Chewie’s board?”

“Oh, do I remember? How could I forget when you _broke_ the kriffing _board_ over my _head?_ ” Finn gestured at the pieces on the table, “I can’t help it if you’re awful at Dejarik.”

“Finn, you literally did a happy dance after wiping out all my pieces in six moves. That deserved at least a punch to the nuts, you got off _easy,_ ” Rose smirked, her Kin’tan Strider sliding out of reach.

This was fine. This was _good_ , Poe decided, as the familiarity of his friends grumbling over a Dejarik board distracted him from the perfidious path of his thoughts. But only temporarily. Because Poe felt the passing of time in the marrow of his bones, the cascading sands of an hourglass running thin. Felt it in the turned metal of his mother’s ring where it rolled between his fingers, another moment of mourning made manifest, a reminder of all Poe had already lost. _Don’t take him too_.

Beside him, Armitage stood stoic, watched the board with as much attention as he gave anything passingly interesting. Unlike Rose, Poe was not surprised when Armitage leaned down to whisper in her ear.

“Oh, _oh.”_

Six moves. Six moves and Rose was howling victory across the ship’s galley. Six moves and Finn was griping that her win didn’t count because he hadn’t agreed to play Hux in Dejarik. Six moves and Armitage was seated beside Rose, asking Poe for his datapad so he could show his friends _Force_ , and Poe let himself drift along, a passenger on this journey, only able to stand sentinel over these final moments with the man he loved.

Poe put the smile on his face, the pitch in his hip, the laugh in his words. Lies, all of it, but so much easier than the truth.

He could not help but feel as if he had missed his chance - Armitage’s chance. That their opportunity to change fate had slipped through their grasp, lost alongside the grains of sand in that hourglass of time. Despite the good will of his friends and Leia’s hope, the death knell of the approaching negotiations would seal the agreement Armitage had made with the Senate. The First Order would be welcomed into the fold of the New Republic, and the payment for this good will would be called due. Armitage would hand himself over, just as he had promised.

Or he would leave with the Order. Find safety deep among the stars, disappearing back into the abyss he had come from, the shadow of his shape left behind as a bruise on Poe’s heart.

 _You could follow him_.

Except he couldn’t.

He had tried to convince himself he could. Thought, surely, with enough time, he could adapt to that life. Could leave the world he had fought for behind to follow Armitage into the unknown. Help him rebuild the First Order into something that could survive the toils of a Galaxy that hunted them. He would not blame Armitage if he chose that life, because Poe also understood choice was a luxury Armitage did not have, never had. Born and bred into the Order, _for_ the Order, that Armitage would return to it felt natural. But Poe could not go with him. The wall was there, not a line, a _wall_ , as insurmountable as the cliffs of Ajan Kloss.

 _It’s not our only option_. He had told Armitage, but Poe could not shake how it felt like the inevitable one.

The sound of laughter tore through him, like the fletching of buckshot from his father’s slug thrower; all these tiny wounds that would eventually bleed him dry.

“Hey, Poe, you okay?” Finn stood beside him, Dejarik board abandoned now that Rose and Armitage were immersed in a game of _Force_ , and Poe supposed he was never really good at keeping secrets.

“Just, got a bad feeling, you know?”

Finn’s frown felt searching, eyes hard on his, and Poe thought he could almost feel the touch of them, as if the primordial presence of Finn’s Force could be wielded with his gaze. “Come with me.”

Poe could not help glancing at Armitage, more wary now than ever before to leave his sight. But he and Rose were bent together over his datapad, smiles on their faces - Rose’s a genuine amusement, Armitage’s softer, a little reserved. Guarded, in the same way Poe remembered when Armitage had first shown him _Force_. Armitage was safe here, as safe as he could be, as safe as anything Poe could offer. “Alright.”

Across the galley’s lounge area was an auxiliary deck the _Swiftly Striking’s_ crew could use as a private meeting room. Compared to the galley, the room was small, but the floor to ceiling transparasteel viewport opened the deck up to deep space, and with it, the sprawling scatter of stars beyond. Or would have, if they weren’t currently three hours deep in a jump. Instead, the view was the familiar miasmic glow of hyperspace, the stars so distended as to no longer suggest a shape, manifesting as a shifting pallascent glow. Like clouds gathering before a storm, the light of the Galaxy fluxed in disarray, casting dusky soft across Finn’s face as he led Poe to a bench before the viewport.

They sat down, side by side, quietly watching the passage of time in the form of refracted light. Poe had always thought hyperspace beautiful, had never understood the idea of hyper-rapture, that a person could develop a mania by observing it for too long. And as he sat there next to Finn, he could feel how Finn too relaxed, the weight of his presence a comfort, even if it was so different from the man he had met two years ago. Finn had changed - they all had changed - in some shape or another. War tended to do that, tended to alter people more than it ever did the landscape of ideals they fought for. And while their companionable silence stretched on, he knew it was only minutes, rather than hours, before Finn finally spoke.

“Rey’s been teaching me, you know. About the Force,” he began, voice quiet enough that Poe thought Finn might be speaking to someone else, someone not so far away as Poe felt, there beside him on the bench. “She says I’ve got a knack for it, the empathetic stuff. Better than her, at least. Something about how I broke the Order’s conditioning. That was Force related, she thinks. Neither of us really know.” Finn loosed a soft laugh, at that. It was humorless, a little sad. “Neither of us really know what we’re doing. It’s the blind leading the blind. Luke didn’t teach her much, you know? Just some vague mystical Jedi nonsense. All the practical stuff she’s learned on her own, or from Ren.”

Finn paused, swallowed, eyes drifting to the viewport, where the star sprayed light drowned out the dark emptiness of space. The shadows remained, hovering beyond, biding their time for the moment they could reemerge, the propulsion of hyperspeed but a momentary solace.

“That was…really hard for me. Accepting that Kylo Ren had something to teach Rey. I was sure that whatever it was that drew them together, it was not of the Light. It couldn’t be, because it was Ren. He was…I don’t know how to describe him, on the Finalizer. Like some wild shadow creature, brilliant and awful and not of this world. I don’t know how Hux wasn’t terrified of him, it seemed he was the only one who wasn’t,” Finn sounded genuinely flummoxed, and Poe could not stop his sinking feeling. If Finn only knew how Ren was just one of many awful terrifying men in Hux’s life…“Rey was scared of Ren too, or at least I thought she was. When I realized that the bond they shared was more than some Force thing, I think I convinced myself that it was only inevitable that Ren would take Rey away along with everything good and right inside her. How could he not, he’s Kylo Ren, right? But he hasn’t. And that…that has been hard too. Coming to terms with that.”

Finn sighed, lost in this thoughts, silence stretching to tenuous threads, each passing moment another fiber come undone.

“But as difficult as it has been to watch Rey and Ren form this bond, watching you and Hux has been so much harder.” And as the thread unraveled, Poe felt untethered, as if he were one more star whose shape was lost to the shifting flux of hyperspeed. “Because Ren I understood. He was awful and terrifying because the Dark side of the Force is awful and terrifying. But Hux was awful and terrifying because he was a man, just like me, like any one of us. He didn’t have the same excuse Ren had, to do the things he did. And I-” Finn drew in a shuddering breath, meeting Poe’s eyes for the first time since they’d begun this stars cursed confessional, “-I didn’t know what to do, when it became obvious there was something happening between you two.”

Poe’s swallow felt like drowning, but he pushed his words free, saying, “Finn I-”

“No, Poe. I’m not, I can’t even _say_ this right,” Finn’s laugh cut strange, frustration, or resignation, or- “I mean, there’s been something between you two for a while. I think I saw it before you did, the moment you made the decision to take him with us. I still don’t know how you knew he was the spy, how you saw that and no one else did. And I think there was a greater reason to what you did, I don’t understand how, but it has something to do with what is happening now. Something else you saw that I couldn’t. Because there is something to you Poe. Something that makes the world bend to you, or you find the places where you can bend it, and it catches the people around you in its orbit. I don’t know if it’s a Force thing or just you, Poe.”

Finn paused again, silent until Poe met his eyes. And whatever Finn was trying to say, Poe thought he could see it there, in the quiet places between his words, in all the things that were being left unsaid.

“You were so _on board_ , when I basically kidnapped you. Like, here I am, some crazy Stormtrooper suggesting we hijack a TIE and you were just, whatever, let’s do it,” his laugh, this time, sounded honest, and Poe _clung_ to that. “I don’t know why I chose that day to defect from the Order. I’ve gone over it so many times, trying to understand. And the conclusion I keep coming to is you. There was something about you, something that drew me to you. I was gonna defect anyway. Hell, I could have signed up for any stupid supply mission to Jakku and cut and run. No one would have caught on until it was too late. Everyone was so conditioned, all it would have taken was an excuse to get away for the few minutes it would take to ditch my armor and disappear into a crowd.”

If Poe thought Finn had sounded frustrated before, this was outright vexation. “But you inspired me to fucking break you out of the brig and steal the first ship we found. It didn’t even have a hyperdrive, what was I _thinking_.” This time it was Poe’s turn to laugh. It was weak, barely a chuckle, as fragile as the emotion gathering at the corners of his eyes. “So like, I think then, that I get it. Hux must have felt that too, got caught up in you, or whatever weird thing you’ve got going on. And that…that made sense. But Poe, it’s taken me a really, _really_ long time to figure out what about _him_ got to _you_.”

 _Everything_ , Poe wanted to say, kept to himself. He wasn’t even sure if he could pinpoint one singular moment that was his turning point. Armitage had felt inevitable, as inevitable as the passing of time, the light of the stars, the deep black nothing that held them.

“I mean, this is fucking _General Hux_. It wasn’t Ren or Snoke or Palpatine who built Starkiller and destroyed a whole system, it was, again, just a man, like you and me. And that was somehow so much more awful and terrifying to me than some Dark-sided monster, because that meant any one of us could become what he became. There was no greater evil, no monster, just a _person_.

“But then I started thinking why. How could a person like that exist? And I realize, it’s because the Galaxy must have failed in some way. Failed him. Failed all of us, because Hux is…he’s not a bad person. He’s someone who has made some really big fucking mistakes and I…I never thought I would say this, but the New Republic, they’ve got this all _wrong_. Because if a person like Hux can turn himself around, you’ve got to nurture that. That’s fucking _hope_ , for all of us who have started down the wrong path, or like…reached the god damn end of it. And you know what, _Hux_ taught me that. Not Leia or Rey or you. Watching the one and only General Hux struggle his way out of the Order’s conditioning without even the Force to help him, fucking give that guy a medal, at _least_ a pardon. And I-” And if Poe didn’t know Finn had more to say, he might have grabbed him right then, pulled him into the hug they both needed and hung on until time itself stopped spinning. “-I think maybe you played a part in that, like how you played a part in my defecting. But I didn’t defect for you. And Hux, he didn’t either. He did it for himself, and for the Order, to _help_ them. To save them, in the only way he knew how. So, I get it. I get why you fell for him. Hux is, he’s-”

Finn cut off, let out a sigh, forging words from his feelings in a way Poe never thought he could articulate, but was so grateful Finn could, “I don’t know how to describe it, but I guess it’s like how brilliant the Force was when I discovered it, the first time I recognized the touch of it; that it’s something special that would always be a part of me, and how now I can’t imagine what life would be like without it. Hux must feel that way to you.”

Poe didn’t remember when he had started crying, wasn’t sure when he would ever stop. He pushed his hands over his cheeks, wiping at the tears, biting his lip as time re-threaded through this singular moment - the stitch too small, too loose, to repair the wound in Poe’s heart, but it was a start. Finn pulled him close, held him tight, strong and familiar and comforting. And when he buried his head in Poe’s hair, he thought he heard the quiet sigh of Finn’s breath, as shattered as Poe’s, broken by the tumultuous turning of a world out of their control.

“I’m so over this war, Poe. I don’t know why helping people is so hard. I don’t know why it’s so difficult to just look at the person next to you and realize they’re not so different. I couldn’t kill a town of innocent people, but I’ve shot down my fellow fucking Stormtroopers like they didn’t ever matter. But they do matter, just as much as that hovel of folks I couldn’t kill matters. And now when we’re finally _helping_ people in this real and tangible way, we’ve got the New Republic trying to turn it all into some political agenda to serve justice and save face, when nothing is going to bring any of the dead back. Why can’t we just focus on who’s left, help them, and try and move forward together?”

“I don’t know bud,” Poe’s voice, weak, cracked over the words. “I don’t know, but I want that too. I want it so badly.”

They held on to each other as the world passed them by with an unflappable momentum, carrying them towards something that should feel like victory, but was soured, tainted with the taste of defeat. The rift that Poe had once felt separated them closed, here, the space no more vast than the weave of the clothing they wore, the breadth of air that passed through their words. And just as Finn had promised him, Poe felt, for once, truly not alone - wanted Armitage to feel the same way, even as he feared he may not be the person to provide it.

But when the door to the galley opened with a _whoosh_ , and the blackened silhouette of Armitage filled the light spilling through, Poe hoped he was wrong. Hoped he could be that man still, the one who would see Armitage through to a world where he was no longer alone.

Finn drew away, not entirely, only enough to turn towards Armitage in silent regard. His face, immutable in the shadows, revealed nothing of his words. But Poe imagined Hux could hear them all, had been drawn to them as surely as Poe had been drawn into Finn’s embrace.

When Finn turned back to him, it was with a small smile, and an affirmation that cut quick, “We’ve got this, remember?”

“Yeah, I know,” Poe whispered, tears gathering again. “Love you, buddy.”

“I love you too, Poe.”

Poe could only watch as Finn crossed the room. As Armitage stepped to the side to allow him to pass. But Finn stopped, hand lifting to Armitage’s shoulder to rest there for a moment that stretched through time, like the long drawn thread stitching together Poe’s heart.

Beyond the transparasteel, hyperspace fluxed. Light passed in flickering moments, and from the shadows it cast, the future revealed itself not as something new, but as the echo of the past. The shade of a history already lived, long lost; the distance of space harboring the remnants of a Galaxy that would never know this war, this struggle, or the long-harrowed journey being made by those who had once fought it.

-

As slender as Hux’s shoulders were, they carried the weight of what he bore with efficient aptitude.

He’d grown used to the weight, long ago. Months and years and decades of responsibility, fear, and guilt, collected into the burden he had shouldered through life like a soldier’s march towards dawn. So Hux did not stagger when Finn’s hand came down to lay across the padded arch of his shoulder. Finn observed with a peculiar intensity - an understanding that Hux had not noticed during their transport ride, so many days ago. And where Hux expected himself to wither under that stare, he felt bolstered. And where he thought the weight of this man’s attention would be but another thing added to the burden he carried, when Finn’s hand lifted, it took with it not just the weight it bore, but the heaviness of those other things. Things long suffered, but harbored still, in the arduous pall of his past.

Wordlessly, Finn slipped from the room, the hydraulic door sliding shut and bathing him in shadow.

Across the room, Poe sat. Waiting, watching. And Hux moved to Poe with the freedom of a man whose lease on life had run over. It did not help that Poe pulled him down to the bench with just as much temerity. But as his eyes roved over Poe: the mussed fall of his hair, the swollen puffiness of his eyes, the hastily wiped away tracks on his cheeks, Hux thought he might be able to carry just a little bit more, for Poe.

“You’ve been crying,” he did not ask why, or if he was alright. Let the pass of his hand over Poe’s cheek ask those questions instead.

“Yeah. Sorry, Finn had- he had some things to say. And you know me, apparently I’m a crier,” his laugh fell flat, and Hux considered if he should try to tease out more genuine mirth.

Settled instead for touching Poe. Fingers to his chin, knee hooked over his thigh, Hux slid through Poe’s meager defenses, exploiting the weakness of his armaments as well as he had those of Tico’s _Force_ strategy. “I left your datapad with Tico, she wanted to try her hand against the AI.”

Poe’s eyes had hooded, gaze drifting down to where his hands had taken to tracing the general stripes on Hux’s sleeve. “You didn’t warn her that you designed the AI after yourself?”

“I designed the AI to best match myself,” he corrected, as he gathered the scattered pieces of Poe. Directed them where they needed to go. His hands, though, were caught instead, the gloves slowly teased free by touches long familiar.

“No one is your match, certainly not a computer sim.” Bit by bit, Hux was taken apart as Poe reassembled himself whole. And Hux let it happen, gave himself up, every last piece.

They sat in paciferous reverie, under the gentle glow of hyperspace, heads tilted towards one another, fingers tangled skin to skin, nothing but the soft sigh of their breath interrupting the quiet of the flight.

There was not much time left, for moments like these. Hux cherished what he was allowed, made memories of what he could, crafting a lifetime out of these singular seconds, as if he didn’t already know that, when the end came, it would drown out all of this in a sudden tempestuous wave. Knew he should tell Poe. Should strike down this tenuous hope that Poe clung to: that he was going to escape with the Order and survive amongst the stars.

But before Hux could gather his words, Poe spoke.

“Armitage, I have something for you,” Poe’s voice did not match his face, far too warm, too open, compared to the sadness that shaped him. Poe had found his hand, turned it up, circled the soft tender cup of his palm. “It’s for you to keep, no matter what happens.”

_No matter what happens to you._

Once more, his fate left unsaid between them, and Hux supposed it would do not good to define the obvious. No matter what Poe thought, there was only one thing that could ever come between them, now. Hux’s fingers curled up, hooked over the fingers that traced him, held onto whatever he could.

From around his neck Poe drew a chain - a necklace - looped through the simple tarnished silver of a ring. At once familiar and unfamiliar, Hux recognized it only in the way a person would recognize a fixed aspect suddenly out of place. What was to him just another detail that made up Poe, no different from the curl of his hair or the shape of his mouth.

Apparently, it was far more than any of that.

“This was my mother’s,” Poe’s voice cast out from the fluid darkness that obscured him, the heavy bowed weight of memory shrouding him in a shadow that reached beyond the physical. “When she died, my father gave it to me. I thought he would want to keep it, since-” Poe looked up, and Hux met his eyes, closed his hand over Poe’s, stifled his breath in the cage of his heart. “-since it’s her wedding ring.” Poe’s eyes held his, and altogether Hux felt himself spiraling off, as the import of what was happening here hit him full force. “But he gave it to me, and I promised I’d give it to the right person, once I found them.”

“Poe-” Hux wasn’t sure if his voice made a sound, couldn’t hear it over the beat of his racing heart. “-Poe, you shouldn’t, what if-”

“You’re not going to die,” And for the first time, Poe said those words with a force that felt real. “You’re going to do whatever it takes to survive, Armitage.”

Hux’s breath left him in a rush, arrested by the expression painting Poe’s face, a resolve that had everything to do with the future Poe had settled upon, where Hux survived without him, their orbits broken, their paths uncrossed. And Hux understood then, that he could not contend with this resolve. 

“I love you, Armitage.” No longer a confession, but a declaration, a promise. Poe placed the ring in the cup of his palm, folded his fingers over it, held safe within the confines of both their holds. “No matter what happens, I’ll always love you. Don’t ever forget that.”

“Poe,” his voice hung off the word, stretched thin. _I don’t know what to say._ Knew there was nothing he could say. If this was the shape of Poe’s hope, Hux would not shatter that. If every forward step Poe was to take meant he had to believe Hux would survive, even if surviving meant he would leave, then who was he to strike him down where he stood tall.

Hux was not going to leave with the Order, but if that was the part he had to play in this story, well, Hux had grown good at going along with Poe’s fantasies.

In his palm the ring was still warm with the heat of Poe’s skin, and suddenly, more than anything else, that was what Hux wanted to feel. He leaned into Poe, gripping the ring so tightly his hand shook, Poe’s thumb stroking over his bone white knuckles.

Without a word, Poe pulled him into an embrace. Hux devolved, collapsing into Poe, into the safety he felt every time they came together like this. Beneath the silk of his skin was the beat of his heart, and all the little physical things that told their own story, a simple story Hux could read in the ebb and flow of their touch; a story where he and Poe stayed like this, forever.

When Poe tipped his head down to press his cheek alongside Hux’s, he turned into him. Their lips met in a gentle press, Poe’s arm steadying where it wrapped around his waist, hand lifting up to cradle his jaw. A gentle amative thing, the kiss felt easy, in the way nothing else in Hux’s life felt easy, anymore. It left him untethered, with nothing to hold onto but the ring; and as delicate and insubstantial as it felt, in it was a strength he had thought he could only find in the grip of Poe’s touch.

“Let me put it on you,” Poe murmured into the kiss. They came apart only enough for Poe to trace Hux’s hand open, the drag of his fingertips unraveling far more than his fist. Poe uncoiled the chain, the ring swinging between them, silver edged in soft light. The weight, when it settled around Hux’s neck, felt natural; as natural as the weight of Poe’s hand where it pressed over his chest. Beneath his palm, Hux could feel the outline of the ring imprint over his heart. “I love you so much, Armitage,” Poe said, and Hux wished he didn’t sound so sad.

“And I love you, Poe,” he responded, whispered. “Thank you, for this.” _For everything._

“Looks good on you,” Poe murmured when he leaned back in for another kiss, unease forgotten in favor of this. As their lips touched again, Poe played with the ring where it hung, slipping it on and off the tip of his finger, trailing the pad of his thumb down the chain. Hux wondered if he could feel the flutter in his pulse this possessive affection spurred, the pounding of his heart inside his chest. For a second, Hux let himself get swept away, pretended this was it, just the beginning of so many more moments like this, rather than the final thread of a mortal coil come undone. “One day you can wear it on your finger,” circumstance softened the hope of Poe’s words into another phantasmal fantasy, even as his hand was taken into Poe’s, the rough pads of his fingers tracing the the soft skin where a wedding band would sit.

Hux played the scene out in his mind: A wind tousled Poe stood before him on the Arkanis cliffside, waves crashing feathered mist over the small gathered crowd, as Poe’s father spoke the ancient rite of bidding as he tied knot after knot into the silken rope that joined their clasped hands. The bloated rain of the low hanging clouds would hold for another time, and maybe the sun would appear, flickering Hux’s skin in warm kisses. They would seal the ritual with a feast, as was tradition, but make their escape early, chasing dawn from Chirrup’s back, where their future arose with the sun, over and over, until the Galaxy stopped spinning, and their bones had long become dust.

As quickly as it manifested, Hux’s fantasy dissolved with the swiftness of a ship dropping out of hyperspace.

The dimmed running lights of the _Swiftly Striking_ rose to full luminescence, and Hux wondered how the last several hours had passed so effortlessly.

“We’ve reached the drop point,” Poe acknowledged. His hand, where it held Hux’s, had not let go.

“We should get to the bridge.” Hux heard the words from afar, like someone else had spoken them; the parts of him that mattered left behind, standing there still, on the cliffs of Arkanis.

-

The sterile hallways passed in blinding disarray.

Hux followed Poe through the corridors, dragging the remnants of himself along in his wake, struggling to piece together the person he once was, who he needed to become again. Around them, the ship tumulted. Crew slipped through his peripheral vision, some hastening to the engine room to perform post hyperdrive maintenance, some surely to the hangar bays to prep the landing of the Falcon. Others would be heading to the defense controls, where the _Swiftly Striking’s_ shields would be raised to full capacity, and her turbo lasers would be prepped for a potential assault. They would not have dropped directly onto the agreed coordinates, but several hundred leagues outside, so the scans on the First Order ships could be run from afar, and stealth scout ships could be deployed to surround the naval base that was to be their meeting point.

The bridge, when they reached it, was complete chaos. Hux would have scoffed, turned his sneer on the closest Lieutenant and taken control of the bridge crew, if he wasn’t entirely arrested by the sight that greeted him.

“By the Force,” Poe whispered beside him, just as horrified, just as in awe.

Framed by the viewport that stretched the length of the bridge, were two Resurgent class Star Destroyers. Well, almost two. Hux did not need the aide who approached him to tell him which ship was which, nor did he need the eyes of the whole of the bridge suspended in his direction, as he slowly approached the transparisteel to take in the vision that consumed him.

The _Conqueror_ hovered, whole and hale, filling the viewport with her terrible majesty, a sleek black blade of a ship that cut the darkness of space with an even inkier umbra.

But it was the _Absolution_ beside her that consumed his attention, because unlike the _Conqueror_ , the _Absolution_ was anything but _whole_.

The shape of it flickered in strung out distension, broken fragments of a ship rendering itself out of the slow atomization of matter that was hyperspeed at the molecular level. The ship was there, but not there, filling itself in like the trussed up scaffolding of an engineering project recorded in slow motion, little bits of it blinking to life over the too long span of minutes. Hux had read about this, knew it was, theoretically, the risk every ship ran when jumping to hyperspace, but this was the first time he had ever seen it - watched a ship struggle to piece itself back together, watched as the particularized bits of not just the ship, but the men and woman aboard, slowly synced into space.

It struggled, and it fought, and as time rent Hux in half, as his own biology slowed down to what felt like all his billions of atoms vibrating out of place, he only felt himself come back together when the _Absolution_ solidified into shape; whole but not hale - there, but likely not for long.

“We need to evacuate that ship immediately,” Hux breathed, as Poe stepped closer beside him and placed his hand at his back, both their gazes set on where the _Absolution_ now floated - no, to where it _listed,_ treading space like a creature might tread water, struggling to remain in formation as its thrusters sputtered weakly against the inertia of its hull.

These were his ships, in the way all of the Order was his, had always been his, and he knew his fleet, knew what he saw, right then, in all the ways a scan or report would never reveal.

The running lights along the _Absolution_ were at their highest level, a safety precaution taken only by a ship in distress, so that the rest of the fleet could better visually trace its location, its proximity, to protect or to avoid, in the case of a dangerous drift that took it too close to a neighboring ship. The interior hull lights, meanwhile, were dimmed to a dull brown. Of the many things that could mean, Hux presumed a strain on the life support systems, which meant another of its engines must have failed. That would reduce the _Absolution_ to just one ion engine. One ion engine would be hard pressed to cool the reactor core while providing sufficient life support to the crew, so only the bare minimum systems would be running: oxygen recycling, water recycling, and emergency running lights would be functioning within the sixtieth percentile. Gravity production would be reduced into the thirtieth, with the crew relying on hand holds to maneuver their way through the ship. And the med bay would be limited to critical life support only. All other surgical and medical tech taken offline, with only the med droids internal directives to assist those in need.

And that was to say, if the crew were _alive_. Because Hux had never seen the effects of a ship that took so long to break hyperspace. But he’d read the texts, knew the physics, understood that those aboard would be suffering from hyper sickness, manifesting at the very least as nausea, dehydration, debilitating muscle spasms, let alone the potential severe symptoms of necrotic limbs, the sudden onset of cancerous cells, and temporary psychosis.

Organa appeared at his side, flanked by Mithra. They looked as grim as Hux felt. Far worse off than Ofant, who stood across the room watching them closely, the ghost of a smile playing at his lips. Hux swallowed as Ofant began to move towards them. Would have continued to watch his approach if Organa had not begun speaking.

“General Parnadee hailed, but cut the call short when we realized something was wrong with the _Absolution’s_ jump. The rendezvous has been delayed while they run diagnostics on the ship,” Organa explained, to both him and Poe. Mithra remained stoic, eyes sliding over the frown Hux knew was marring his face. Ofant slid through the space behind her, coming to stand at Organa’s right, attention leveled on Hux, holding him captive in the vice of his stare.

“They don’t need to run diagnostics. I can tell you what’s wrong with that ship. It won’t make another jump, and it has likely already suffered catastrophic damage to the remaining systems. And the crew-” he cut himself off, briefly, as he met Mithra’s steely observance even as Ofant’s eyes burned through him, “-they need an immediate evac. If the engines fail so will life support, not to mention the array of hyper sickness symptoms from the extended re-materialization.”

“We don’t currently have the capacity to transport all those people,” Mithra finally spoke. Hux watched her, expecting defiance, saw instead a statement of fact. “It will take time to get others to make the jump out here, and few ships come to mind with the capacity we need. But I have some favors I can call in. How long does the _Absolution_ have?”

“Anywhere from several hours to several days,” Or less, likely less. “It is no longer flight worthy, not even short distances. It’s all it can do to stabilize within a vacuum. We are lucky it did not come apart during their jump.”

“Yes, just as you predicted it might,” Ofant mused. And unlike Mithra, this was not a statement of fact, but an…accusation.

“I understand these ships.” He said carefully, like that might be an admittance to something the jury was still undecided on.

“I’ll see what ships can be spared for an evac, and then we’ll proceed with the rendezvous as discussed,” Mithra turned to Ofant as she said this, her stare as steely as when it’d been directed at Hux. Ofant merely smiled, head inclined in an acquiescence that dripped with performance.

A performance that took a turn when Ofant said, “I would advise against luring more ships to the drop point until we are assured the weapons systems on both Star Destroyers have been brought offline as requested. In case this is their plan, you understand.”

“This is not a _trap_ ,” Hux snapped before he could stop himself. Continued, before anyone else could stop him, even as he felt the pull of Poe at his side, the weight of Mithra’s stare on his back, the touch of Organa’s Force, smoothing his edges. “What ship in their right mind would risk a jump like that to set a trap? What sort of trap would they set, with only two ships, one of which is catastrophically crippled, against a fleet of seven? What do I have to do to convince you that these people are here for our _help_?”

Hux took a step towards Ofant. Too close to be polite, too far to actually touch, and entirely heedless of the smile that greeted him, the height disadvantage he so rarely encountered.

“Your petty attempts at sabotaging this rescue mission have not gone unnoticed. But I already know your problem is not with the people of the Order, but with me. So, here I am, you have my undivided attention, say what you will, while you have me.”

“Oh, I have you alright,” Ofant demurred, gesturing intimately with his hand, a glancing brush over his cheek, so close Hux could not tell if he felt it or merely the disturbance of the air. He staggered back as if struck. Ofant continued, undisturbed, “But I’ve already said my piece regarding you, to all the people that matter, you understand.”

Smoothly, Ofant’s smile was replaced with a grin, not as long-toothed as Hux had once imagined, more self-satisfied, fat like a well-fed cat, lazy and indulgent but just as rapacious for _more_.

Poe’s fist, when it collided with Ofant’s face, made such a satisfying _thunk._

“Poe!” Organa’s reproof struck sharp, but not deep, and certainly not effectively, as Poe had already pushed himself between him and Ofant, glare darkened to match the color of his voice.

“Sorry Leia,” Poe said, not sounding sorry at all, “I don’t know what came over me.”

But as Ofant straightened, the back of his hand pressed to the split Poe had made in his lip, he looked just as satisfied as if Hux had thrown the punch. Like this break in decorum had been his intention all along. Where he could paint the Resistance as nothing but a rabble of ruffians not fit to lead the Galaxy in anything, let alone negotiations with the First Order.

His riposte, when it came, felt like the real punch.

“I should throw you in the brig for assault,” Ofant suggested, as if the idea had only just come to him.

Hux pushed forward beside Poe, the words he wanted to speak crawling over his tongue, taking form-

-Maybe would have, if his voice wasn’t stolen by the vision that suddenly befell the sprawling viewport.

From the depths of hyperspace emerged a third ship. A ship Hux knew, just like he knew the _Conqueror_ and the _Absolution_. Knew its weaknesses and its weapons, the number of its engines and the length of its halls. And he knew who commanded it. Knew, then, with terrible certainty, that Ofant was right - that this was, in fact, a _trap_.

But the _Swiftly Striking_ was not its prey.

Hux barely heard as the bridge behind him frenzied into a panic: the passing shouts of the captain to throw all power into the forward shields, to man their own battle stations, to brace for emergency maneuvers that would be too slow, had they even the time to execute them. And as if in slow motion, Hux stumbled forward, pushing past the bodies that surrounded him, feet finding their way across the bridge to the railing of the viewport, where he gripped, hanging on, to watch in looming horror as the Class-VI Siege Dreadnought descended, cut its shape from the stars like some cursed spectral beast sent down from the heavens.

Watched as its laser cannons energized to life, light flooding the turbines in that same sickly, ambient glow Hux had once observed with such virile glee.

Watched as the beams hit, the _Absolution_ erupting in an energetic inferno. The explosion of her reactor core manifesting first as wobbling bubble, before contracting and expanding into a burst of blinding white, scattering across the viewport a moment before the sonic boom hit, a howl without sound that tore through his body like the sterile strike of a Force-forged fist.

He fell to his knees, hands gripping the railing, hanging on to whatever was left, blinking against the bright and the tears and the grief that struck through him. And as the light scattered, and his eyes readjusted and the wet ran streaks down his cheeks, he watched as the _Absolution_ returned to matter. Watched as over one hundred thousand souls disintegrated back into the star-flung particles that had once formed them.

Watched as hope died, when the _Mandator_ set its course for the _Conqueror_ , the breadth of its shape befalling the Star Destroyer like the shadowed pass of fate’s hand.

 _No-_ He was shouting. He could feel the sound in his throat, the shape of it, the long drawn syllable echoing empty in the static that had filled his head. But Hux heard nothing of his voice, let alone the footsteps that approached him, or the name that was surely his. When Poe’s arms came around him, lifting him from the ground, pulling him into his embrace, the sights and sounds of the bridge crashed back to life. Warnings indicating, consoles alight with status reports, beeping and screeching in tandem with too many voices barking orders. Organa and Ofant and Mithra clashing in an impotent duel of wills.

“ _-retreat-_ ”

“-if we jump-”

“-you would leave them-”

But Hux could not tear himself from the viewport. Could not turn away as the dreadnaught pivoted on its axis, avoiding the dusty remains of the _Absolution_ as it re-targeted it sights. The _Conqueror_ would not fall right away. Its shields would deflect the cannon fire for the first several dozen rounds, until they became overloaded and fell. They maybe could outrun the _Mandator_ , if their engines had the opportunity to prime, but their shields would need all their resources, and only their TIE could buy them time. Except their weapons had been taken offline, and their TIE would have no cover, no support, and they would drop one by one, until the _Conqueror_ was as exposed as the _Absolution_. Resources wasted on a futile few minutes of life that would end scattered across an empty star system, no one to mourn their fate but a man already doomed to death.

“Poe-” his voice didn’t sound like his own. Roughened by his shouting, swollen thick with emotion. He felt like he had shattered apart alongside the _Absolution_ , and only the gravity of Poe’s presence held him together. His hands twisted into Poe’s shirt, chasing away their shaking with the strength of their grip, “-we have to help them.”

“We need to get to the Falcon.” Poe’s face had hardened, emotion pushed aside in favor of his resolve, “And we need a plan.” Hux clawed at the strength he found there, like his hands clawed at Poe’s shirt, unable to let go, clutching for a hope he ever dared to have.

But hope had never served him. And hope would not save the Order now. Only action would. And as the ship around him prepared for escape, as the New Republic turned their backs on his people once more, Hux knew, suddenly, what he had to do.

“I have a plan,” words spoken as he dragged his shattered pieces back together, his shape reforming into not that of Armitage, but General Hux, the man who would save the First Order.

And he knew how he looked. Understood the choice he was making. Because just like Ofant had been right about the trap, Hux could not help but think that Poe might also, in fact, be right about him.

“You need to get me on that ship,” Hux said as he drew up, drew away, hands de-tangling from their hold on Poe’s shirt, fingers slipping free, letting go.

“I need to get on the _Mandator_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all don't even know what your feedback means to me.
> 
> The saving grace of writing this chapter was definitely the Finn scene. I have such strong feelings for Finn, and it felt so good to let him say his piece to Poe regarding Hux. And I'm glad that piece turned out to be positive, because that scene was literally 'Poe and Finn have a broment about Hux' in my outline, and I did not actually expect it to turn into Finn spilling his heart. Poor man, I'm glad it's now canon that Rey is training him in the Force (thanks, Lego Star Wars, for all your gifts).
> 
> I am almost at 300 kudos! Please, if you like this story and have not left one yet, it would mean the world to me <3


	12. The Conqueror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings, except a brief suggestion of Reylo in the first segment.
> 
> Future chapters will have more than brief mentions. If y'all think I need to add a tag to this story for that pairing please let me know!

The halls of the _Swiftly Striking_ passed in dissevered parts. The bright white glare of the halls froze over in blood-tinted red, throbbing in time with the blaring klaxons as each alarm commanded the crew to action. Poe had known these alarms, once. Had traversed near identical halls as a junior officer, and later as a Captain, his body reacting with the conditioned training befitting his station, let alone the piloting reflexes he had been so espoused of. One series of whoops signaled the engine room to warm the sub-light engines. Another called on line the heavy laser cannons, the shield operators, the bridge crew, the fighter pilots. Command after command repeated in harried succession, until the whole of the ship tumulted into practiced operation, like the nerves of some great beast wielding its many and varied limbs.

Once, Poe had obeyed these alarms. Now they blared meaningless, commands left to fester in the pit of his chest where his heart once beat, as he pulled Armitage along beside him, heading towards the main hangar bay where the Falcon awaited. And with it, the trussed up noose of fate’s final foil.

 _You need to get me on that ship_.

Poe would. Of course he would. Of all the people that would come between Armitage and the Order, Poe as no longer one of them. Armitage would save his people, Poe knew, with the same fearsome confidence that assured him each time the transparisteel hatch of _Black One_ descended over his head.

Armitage would save the Order, and he would either leave in the process, or die as the result.

The Falcon’s engines were already warmed, when they arrived.

“Poe!” Rey shouted from the top of the boarding ramp, flanked by Rose and Finn. They’d all been of the same mind. Unsurprising, for Poe, but he felt the traction to Hux’s steps, the not quite tug against their reckless momentum.

But then a shadow shifted behind Rey. A glimmer of the void against the dark. Familiar in shape, more memory than reality, in the same way a deep wound leaves a scar.

Kylo Ren.

 _Fuck_.

They took the ramp in three long strides, side by side, hand in hand; Poe tried to ignore the way Armitage’s shook.

Rey greeted him with a clasp to his shoulder, brown eyes earnest when they darted between him and Armitage. “Leia won’t answer her comm, is she coming?”

“No-” Poe cut off, glancing to where Armitage hovered just inside the closing hatch, all frozen limbs and severed thoughts. Poe didn’t have the Force, but he was so attuned to Armitage in that moment that he may as well. Armitage’s eyes followed Ren, tracking his movements through the shadows, face hardened over the emotions that had spilled so honest but minutes ago, aboard the bridge. “-she was fighting with the Senate when we left. We need to get off this ship now, before they decide to jump.”

Rey cursed, as Finn took off for the cockpit, to where Chewie would be manning the stick. Rose swept away in the opposite direction, towards the gun station. Poe didn’t miss her glancing touch to Armitage’s sleeve.

“I need to get on the _Mandator_ ,” Armitage spoke firmly. Not a command, but close enough that Rey’s mouth drew a line. “If I can not commandeer that ship it will not stop until it has destroyed the _Conqueror_ and likely as much of this fleet as it can.”

“Are you saying-”

“They’ll have tracked the Order ships through hyperspace. Parnadee mentioned the in-fighting they were hiding from. The _Mandator_ must have been waiting for them to jump, knowing their dwindling resources would eventually drive them out of hiding.”

As Armitage spoke, his eyes traced the shape of Ren from the darkness. Silent, he returned Hux’s attention, posture easy, powerful, unperturbed despite the heat of Armitage’s stare.

Rey remained silent, glancing over her should to Ren, something silent passing between them, wordless but knowing. “Okay. I understand what you’re saying, but getting you onto that ship is not going to be easy, even with Ben and I both-”

“ _No_.”

If the hand in Poe’s grip had been shaking before, now it was outright vibrating.

“He will have no part in this,” Hux spoke lowly, the snarl Poe expected traded in favor of a darkened revulsion.

“Hux-” Ren spoke for the first time, the modulated voice from Poe’s nightmares far too caustic for this boyish whine to be any match.

Yet despite his own personal reservations, no one could deny the power Ren represented, the opportunity he offered. But Armitage would hear nothing of what Ren might say. He turned from Rey and Ren, towards the cockpit, and it was all Poe could do to keep up - to not abandon his hold on Armitage’s hand.

Because Armitage had not let go, was in fact gripping all the tighter.

The grin he gave Rey flashed brief, apologetic.

The words he spoke to Armitage eased soft, soothing.

“If he can help us-”

“Hasn’t he helped enough?”

_Isn’t he the reason any of this is happening?_

“Armitage,” it was Poe’s turn to tighten his hold. Beneath his fingers, beneath the glove, Armitage’s hand leaked heat. “At least let Rey help, I’ve seen her move whole _ships_ with her mind. If we’re going to get on the _Mandator_ , we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

When Armitage drew to a stop, it was so abrupt that Poe very nearly stumbled into him, would have knocked them both to the floor. Instead, he pressed into Armitage’s side, free hand finding his waist to draw him into a shadow, out of the spilled-over light from the open cockpit door ahead. From behind, he could hear Rey and Ren; voices low, tender words murmured.

Poe pushed Armitage into the wall, gently, carefully. Beneath his hands, his body strung tight, coiled with tension, and Poe could not help but think that the release would be what finally broke him. Poe had witnessed it before - the self-destructive quality of Hux’s determination, the ends he would gladly meet if it meant achieving his goals. He’d seen it aboard the _Steadfast_ , when he’d committed himself to treason and the execution that accompanied it. And he had seen it again but a week ago, when he’d offered his life to the Senate. And he was watching it happen again now, as Armitage chased his goal across enemy lines, straight into the heart of conflict, as if his own life didn’t matter at all, if it meant he could save the Order.

Each time, Armitage would have propelled himself head first into death, if not for Poe; if not for the tempered touch of his hands drawing him back from the edge, out of fates’ grasp.

Which was why, when Armitage clasped his hand all the tighter, Poe recognized his desperation not in any words, but in the temerity of his touch.

 _Help me_ , it asked. And Poe would. He would do everything he could.

Armitage’s hand felt feverish, beneath the glove. Poe resisted the urge to remove it, folded his other over top instead, so Armitage’s hand was clasped tightly between his two when he lifted it to his lips. His kiss was soft, lingering. His words, when he spoke them, were quiet. “Let us help you, Armitage.”

“It has to be me. Ren can’t- he’ll just-” Hux’s eyes were steadfast upon their clasped hands, body honed sharp where it pressed into Poe’s, “-this is not his fight. These are not his people.”

“I know. I understand, it can only be you,” Poe assured, even as it felt like he was tearing his own still beating heart out of his chest, “but that doesn’t mean you have to do this alone.”

When Armitage’s eyes met his, Poe saw all the desperation and fear he harbored. Watched each and every second of time between that moment and their arrival on the _Swiftly Striking_ ’s bridge replay itself in the glassy flicker of his stare. And Poe struggled alongside Armitage, wrestling with the knowledge that what needed to be done next truly was all on Armitage. Poe could only watch on while Armitage’s whole life hemorrhaged out around him, the only person who could staunch the wound Armitage himself.

_Not me. I can’t save him. Not this time._

“We need to hail Parnadee, perhaps together-” Armitage cut off, eyes drifting distant as plans were made and unmade; thoughts picking through every possible path and potential destination, each discarded in favor of the next. Poe was unsure if Armitage had a plan as much as he had a conclusion. “-my greatest chance of success lies with getting onto the _Mandator_. Once on board I should be able to take the ship from within.”

“Alright,” from the cockpit Poe could hear the telltale series of indicators that precluded the initiation of the Falcon’s main engines, and the distorted voice over the comm as the _Swiftly Striking_ ’s dock team reluctantly confirmed the Falcon’s disembarkation request. “No easy feat, Hugs. But we’ve pulled off worse. You’ve got the galaxy’s best of the best here to help you.”

Poe held still, praying - _hoping_ \- Armitage would hear him, really _hear_ him. Not just the facade his words painted, but the truth to them: that he was not in this alone, did not have to be. That everyone aboard the Falcon cared, actually cared, in the way the New Republic never could. In the way anyone who had watched this war from the sidelines never could.

When Armitage leaned forward to rest his forehead against Poe’s, it was intimate, touching Poe in a way little else could. His breath staggered in his lungs, his heart hammered in his chest. And when Armitage whispered, _thank you_ , it was Poe’s hands, this time, that shook.

They entered the cockpit just as the Falcon slipped through the hangar bay door and into open space.

Before them, the _Mandator_ loomed, the yawning nothing of deep space consumed by the wedge-shaped hull of the Star Destroyer. Over twice the size of _Conqueror_ , it dwarfed the already massive ship in an artificial shadow, the running lights along its hull winking with the still scattered energetic remains of the _Absolution_ which hung heavy between them. The radiation cloud would be massive. And while those aboard the Star Destroyers would be safe, the TIE fighters that were currently funneling from the _Conqueror’s_ port side hangar would barely be shielded against that level of radioactivity. Poe had ran a ship through a radiation storm, once. Had been sick for days after.

But the _Conqueror_ did not have a choice. Not when they were stranded alone and near defenseless, their only potential ally too busy fighting among themselves over whether they were worth whatever scrap of humanity was left inside their ship. The _Conqueror_ would send her pilots to die, just as Armitage would drive himself into death’s hands, because that had always been the way of the Order; where loyalty meant totality, and commitment understood no compromise.

Beside him, Armitage took a step forward, the hands clasped behind his back flexing so tightly his gloves gave a squeak. It was the final betrayal of his emotions, before they were absconded in favor of a critical eye that flicked over the view port in quick pulses.

“Will you hail the _Conqueror_ , please?” The politeness of the request sounded strange even to Poe, let alone Finn and Chewie who both looked to him for confirmation. The co-pilot’s seat was not empty, however. Phasma looked as gray as Armitage, face shuttered against the shift of her own thoughts as she examined Armitage from what otherwise appeared to be a relaxed lounge.

“Already tried, our comms are jammed,” she reported, pausing before adding, almost thoughtfully, “Sir.”

“Then try again, _Captain_ , and this time don’t use the Falcon’s signal.”

Phasma’s face lit as she pursed her lips, fishing her datapad out from beneath her battered armor. It looked like she had tried to polish it - tried and failed - the pitting far too deep, too permanent, to ever be buffed back to its original gleam. And as Phasma connected to Order net, and the Falcon set a course for the _Conqueror_ , Poe felt his world shift, just a little, on its axis. Who’d have ever thought the lines of his life would change so drastically? Who’d have ever predicted he’d be running to the rescue of the very people he had once shot down from the cockpit of _Black One?_

How many TIE had he blown from the sky? How many Star Destroyers had they watched burn bright over the horizon of Exegol? How many Stormtroopers had he set his blaster upon, putting holes through their armor as if an individual person weren’t hidden behind each identical mask?

And how many of his own men and women had he led into battle against these very people? How many lives had he sacrificed for the sake of ridding the galaxy of the First Order, of the people he now understood were never all that different - not really - not in the ways that mattered. Not in ways that could be addressed, with respect and understanding. With a negotiation that should have taken place after the war his parents had fought, when victory had been a sure thing, and the open wound of the former Empire had not the time to fester.

 _Order_.

That was the First Order Armitage had fought for, had grown up idealizing. A Galaxy who left no one behind, where the light of the Core worlds wasn’t the only beacon of civilization. Where home was a place crafted from a seat among the stars, a ship that knew no worldly bounds, unlike the planets that had birthed them, and then turned their backs.

The Order had built itself on the labor of the downtrodden, the overlooked; envisioned by the very people the New Republic had condemned to exile and then hunted in fear. Who could fault them if they turned fanatical? Who could place the blame of the galaxy’s problems solely at their feet, when the New Republic had not so much as lifted a finger to extend their protection and wealth beyond the safety of the Core, after a war had left the whole Galaxy reeling?

And who could be surprised, when the abused bit back, more vicious and violent than the hand that had tried to subdue them?

Beside him, the light of the _Conqueror_ limned Armitage’s profile in stark relief. Poe had thought he’d understood, for so long, what this all meant for him. Had thought he’d understood what is was Armitage had given up, in defecting to the Resistance. And he thought he’d been able to frame it all in the same way Armitage surely saw it, saw the Order, and his responsibility to the ideals he had dedicated his life to. But as Poe stared at Armitage, the straight back, the clasped hands, and all the little telling signs of stress carefully composed into the perfect picture of uncompromising control, Poe realized he had only ever scratched that surface.

It had all seemed so clear, when he had thought they’d still been the good guys - when Armitage was ‘seeing the light’ or whatever bullshit had made it easier to watch the man he loved struggle to give up on everything he had worked for all his life. But right and wrong were constructs touted by the naive, the men and women who watched their worlds turn from the safety of their privilege. Because life was not black and white. This war had never been black and white. And certainly, the battle taking place before them, was every shade of gray on the spectrum.

“Shouldn’t we hail the _Swiftly Striking_? Are they really going to jump? We can’t do this without the fleet-”

“No, we don’t need them, let them jump,” Armitage spoke coolly, wearing authority as easily as he wore the tailored cut of his uniform.

“We can’t get close to the _Mandator_ with only the Falcon and a Star Destroyer with its weapons offline,” Finn spoke, “There is no way we can get you close to that ship.”

“Take a second look,” and Poe knew he wasn’t imagining the smugness he heard, “The _Mandator_ is not planning an attack, so much as a commandeering.”

Finn’s frown fell away as he turned back to the view port. Poe felt his own mouth fall open in shock.

“They’ve got her in their traction beam,” Poe breathed it out, taking a step closer, sliding between the two cockpit seats to get a better look. It was faint, obscured by the glittering debris of the _Absolution_ , but there it was, the beams tethered fast to the _Conqueror’s_ bow. “They want the ship. Of course they want the karking _ship_.”

“Indeed, and the first thing they will do when they have it is slice her systems and take control. So we best get aboard the _Conqueror_ while we still have the opportunity,” Hux stepped up alongside him, observing Phasma with a peculiar intensity. “Any luck, Captain?”

“If this was your pad Parnadee would have picked up already, I am sure she has bigger problems right now than my ghost coming back to haunt her.” Phasma frowned down at the unanswered comms call, blinking screen glinting off the dulled sheen of her armor. “Hell, I could be on the _Mandator_ for all she knows.”

“Keep trying,” said Armitage, voice bereft of emotion, posture comfortable in the way only years of command could inhibit, “she’ll answer.”

It shouldn’t be curious, Poe thought, that Armitage’s confidence was so infecting, his tone brokering only an abiding assurance. But as Poe felt his nerves calm, the tightness in his throat release, the pound of his heart slow, he understood something else, then. Something that should have been so very obvious for far longer than the time it took to release his held breath. Armitage wasn’t just another commander, one of the figureheads that topped the pyramid of the First Order’s command. He was a leader. An actual _leader_ , as natural as any Poe had worked under, as natural as he had once thought himself to be, before his leadership had led so many to their deaths.

And as the sing-songy chime of Phasma’s datapad clattered through the cockpit like a mallet to a skull, and as Poe looked to Armitage when he accepted the pad from Phasma, his face inscrutable under the dim light of the cockpit, his mind consumed in the careful consummation of a plan he had only just wrought, Poe realized that yes, Armitage Hux was a leader, and a damned _good_ one, and Poe couldn’t help but think that was what the New Republic should really be afraid of.

-

Bellava Parnadee emerged from the dark like a ghost. And with her came the poltergeist of his past: spindly fingers that dragged up his spine and coiled tight around his throat, a knife sharp pain plunging deep into his temples.

A punch to his gut, so deep the the air in his lungs rushed out in staccato breaths.

It was only the presence of Poe behind him that kept Hux at all together, as the phantom shape of his past came back to claim him with an ownership that, Hux thought, would never truly be surrendered.

The hangar bay of the _Conqueror_ was dark, the emergency lighting doing naught to flood the arching space now that the Falcon’s landing lights had dimmed. There was barely any room for the ship, let alone the men and women who stood rank and file along its walls. A space had been hastily cleared for the Falcon’s arrival, but debris still littered the floor - scattered, now, from the disturbance of the Falcon’s engines. All around him were little remnants of life lost among the landing gear: a torn blanket there, someone’s discarded helmet there, and a stank that permeated the air; the very cloying scent of human biology at work without the confines of a basic standard of hygiene.

Parnadee stood in frozen attention, eyes wide, mouth tight with a tension Hux felt mirrored in himself. How many times had Hux stood in this very position? At his desk aboard the _Finalizer_ , or around Ren’s command table, meeting with Parnadee and the other generals to discuss strategy? How may times had she pursued his alliance, during those early years, when Snoke had set upon Hux his favor alongside the brutal touch of his Force? And how many times had she approached him aboard the _Steadfast_ , when Hux’s favor had been all but spent, as if there were still some value to be found in his alliance. As if Kylo Ren had not kept him around only because it was easier than actually dealing with Snoke’s leftover rabid cur.

It was only after the long drag of her eyelids that Hux realized, of course, it was not Parnadee who was the ghost here, but him.

“General Parnadee, thank you for receiving us.” And Hux wondered then, as Parnadee’s eyes slid from his companions to meet his gaze, and her face fractured over an emotion that resembled relief, if it wasn’t his favor Parnadee had courted, but his respect.

“General Hux, so the rumors are true.” Echoed words, meaning lost to everyone but Phasma and Poe - Poe, who shifted closer, an imperceptible movement, for anyone but Hux. “I’m sorry we could not receive you in the main hangar, we need to keep it available for the returning TIE.”

“That’s quite alright.” He stood rigid, flanked by Phasma to his left, Poe to his right. Behind them, Rey and Finn stood with Rose, hovering at the bottom of the Falcon’s loading ramp. Together, they made an uncanny menagerie, he knew. And his own words echoed true, _If you are to survive, foes must become friends._ “Am I right to presume Captain Peavey commands the _Mandator_?”

“You knew?” Parnadee kept her voice clear of inflection, but Hux knew this woman, knew her mind.

“A guess. We spoke weeks back, it was not a pleasant conversation.” His feet felt heavy, as he fell into step beside Parnadee. “The Millennium Falcon will remain for a short stay, I apologize for the disturbance we’ve caused your crew.”

The sniff Bellava gave him was a break in decorum and entirely out of character, but a break Hux readily welcomed. “Believe me, they are grateful for your arrival. I presume you have a plan, General?” And there was no mistaking the flick of her eyes past Hux’s shoulder, to where Phasma and Poe followed.

To where Kylo Ren hid, relegated to the shadows where he belonged; stowed away inside the Millennium Falcon, the only part of Hux’s plan he could not account for - could not predict - because Ren was as obtuse as a Kalak with a skull just as thick.

“The plan is a peaceful surrender, of course.” Hux inclined his head at the out-of-armor trooper who had just stumbled into the hangar bay unaware. To be caught out of uniform during a militarized movement, despite the hangar bay having been transformed into living quarters, should earn him a demerit and a potential demotion. The fear on his face bled freely, his salute impeccable. Hux passed him by with a tilt to his chin, a lift of his brow, held back the turn of his mouth when the trooper somehow stood straighter.

“General,” Parnadee lowered her voice, attention dragging over the very same trooper, the line of her mouth hardening. “With all due respect, if we surrender, Peavey will execute all of us.”

“Oh we won’t be surrendering, General, the _Mandator_ will.”

It was taking everything within her not to snap. Hux could see it in the frail way her mouth trembled, the hooded weight of her eyes. The way her attention kept darting to the crew around her, as if the convergence of their stares were dragging her apart bit by bit. “And how do you plan to achieve _that_?”

“There is a reason Captain Peavey did not rise further through the ranks during his long tenure with the Order. His command over the _Mandator_ is born of opportunity, not from respect of his crew or the support of his peers.” His step didn’t falter, as he crossed the threshold from hangar to hallway. Even here, the ship was lived-in. Lights darkened to a dim brown, the floors dulled with the scuffs of boots, the scattering of dust, the grime of a well-trodden path taken by thousands of footfalls every day for months. “Dameron, you’ve flown a TIE before, haven’t you?”

Poe’s step staggered, Hux barely held back his smile. “Yeah, except I- uh, crashed it, that one time. But sure, I can fly a TIE.”

“I am confident you can.” He would have to, if they were to get on the _Mandator_ alive.

“Our laser turrets will need another thirty minutes to generate enough power to fire, General Hux. And our TIE are far fewer in number than the _Mandator’s_ compliment. I advise a strike team of bombers, to compromise the ship’s hull. Perhaps led by your pilot there, he’s destroyed one of our Dreadnoughts before, he can-”

“We will not be destroying the _Mandator_ , General,” Hux snapped, highly cognizant of Poe’s presence behind him, the sheepish grin he was likely to be wearing at the mention of one of his more…effusive victories. “I plan to preserve as many First Order lives as physically possible. Those are still our brethren, despite what ship they call home,” he said it with all the conviction he felt - the surety that rendered his plan from what, he acknowledged, looked as foolish as the stripped down trooper scrambling for his armor.

“What Peavey wants is the _Conqueror_ , so we will give her to him. Allow the tethering, it will bring us close enough for our TIE to cover the transport of our strike team. I’ll lead the team, to board the _Mandator_ and take it from within.”

And when Peavey sliced the life support system to drain the atmosphere out of the _Conqueror_ …well, Hux had a plan for that too, one he did not much care for, but could make work.

“You think they’re just going to let you _walk_ onto that damned ship?” When she finally snapped, it was with months of pent up aggression, weeks of sleepless nights, hours of harrowing doubt that had sundered her mind from her emotions, “And what of the tethering, he’ll take control of our systems, could cut life support, suffocate us all-”

“Not without overriding your command codes, General. He may have the superior ship but he still only has the credentials of a Captain. He’ll either need time to slice your systems or will take you alive, so he can finally get that promotion he’s been so _unfairly_ denied.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

He wasn’t wrong, he didn’t have room to be wrong.

“Trust me, General. I’ve dealt with men far more dangerous than our dear Captain Peavey.”

A ripple moved through the ship, barely more than a tremor beneath the rubber sole of his boot. The tethering. The _Conqueror_ would be hauled so close to the _Mandator_ that it would make jumping to hyperspeed, let alone average maneuvering, too dangerous to manage. Soon the local network would be tapped, the systems sliced. A risk he was only willing to run because he had Kylo Ren.

Kylo Ren, whose command codes would override all others.

If he cared to use them. If he at all lifted a finger to _help_.

“To the bridge, General, I am sure Peavey is eager to speak with you.”

Stepping onto the _Conqueror’s_ bridge, was like stepping through time. Hux took a steadying breath as the thready twang of his boots on the durasteel flooring dislodged memories of another life. Aching things he had buried in the months past, when duracrete had replaced steel and an acrid humidity had ballooned heavy in his lungs. The _Finalizer_ had felt much the same, so damn near identical; twin ships birthed from Kuat’s ship yards but eighteen months apart. Sisters, if ships were to have one, the differences in their builds so minuscule as to be overlooked by the undiscerning eye.

Hux though, had a very discerning eye. And he tethered himself in the present through the construct of the _Conqueror’s_ trivial tells, the little bits that set her apart from the ship in his dreams, the one he had once called home.

Transparisteel arched high overhead, revealing the underbelly of the _Mandator_. The running lights flooded so bright they struck shadows out of the figures standing at the _Conqueror’s_ consoles. Darkened, they appeared more shapes painted into a portrait than actual people, frozen against a landscape even the most experienced bridge crew would be wary to behold. Beyond their silhouettes a team of TIE warbled past, heading in formation to return to the _Conqueror’s_ port side, to where her own main hangar opened to space.

Hux imagined how these tethered ships would appear to the New Republic: two massive creatures merging to form an even greater beast, like the parasitic absorption of some dark Force-cursed predator.

The holo projector glowed empty, the blue cast spilling cool against the warm light of the _Mandator’s_ hull.

“Generals.” The ship’s Captain, a man named Dolnovan, saluted with the same enthusiasm as the trooper, eyes drifting over Hux’s face quickly before falling into place at a point over his shoulder. “Comms are not jammed, but the _Mandator_ will not answer our hails. Status of the ship is stable, no damage to our hull or reduction in power to the deflector shields. Our TIE have disengaged from preliminary maneuvers as commanded, without engagement on either side.”

“They want our ship whole, Captain Dolnovan, and her TIE intact, I imagine,” said Hux, while Parnadee pursed her lips and stepped away to approach the viewport. “Hail Captain Peavey again, this time with an amendment, tell him General Hux would like to speak with him.”

“Yes, sir,” said with only a waver of pride. And all around him, Hux could feel the crawl of eyes, the twitter of unvoiced expectations, notes passed via knowing glances and smothered smirks. _General Hux is here. General Hux will save us. General Hux has returned to the First Order._

Hux clasped his hands behind his back, imagined it was Poe’s hands gripping his gloves so tightly, rather than his own feeble fingers. He could feel Poe, there, just beyond the physical reach of his body. Imagined the way Poe must see him, right then: a figment of the past re-birthed anew, the man Poe had grown to love eschewed in favor of this haunted memory, something even more horrid than the specter of his past. Because Hux recognized how easily he slipped back into this role. How naturally he wielded the command of a General, and surely that meant something. Something Poe would never be able to forgive.

The comm clanged loudly as their hail was accepted.

Peavey’s holo, when it rendered into its blue-tinged three dimensions, was placid, almost deathly with his constructed calm. Only the slow blink of his eyes gave away that this was something actually living. His hair was hidden beneath his Captain’s cap, face framed ghastly by the under-lighting of the _Mandator’s_ forward bridge pit. It exposed the length of his torso in cool relief, and across his tailored uniform splashed a dark spot, almost unnoticeable in the strange cast of the holo, but there, and recognizable, because Hux had seen it all before.

“Captain Peavey, congratulations on your new commission. The _Mandator_ is a fine ship, isn’t she?”

“Far finer than the _Finalizer_. Is it true what they say, you scuttled her on some backwater Rebel outpost?”

No correction to his title, Hux duly noted. Not a confirmation, but close enough.

“Decommissioned beachside, enjoying her golden days under a planet’s sun. As such, I find myself missing the halls of a Star Destroyer, so I’ve decided to take your’s. Your crew will understand I am sure. It wouldn’t be the first time the _Mandator_ has been commandeered.”

Peavey sneered, and it all felt so predictable. “I won’t insult your intelligence by pointing out that it is the _Conqueror_ which is currently being commandeered, General Hux. My strike team is readying for departure, your crew would be be prepared to be boarded, and yourself and General Parnadee available for arrest. I’d hate to have to use undue force upon your ship, this can be peaceful.”

There was no strike team, Hux gave Peavey that much credit, at least. “As peaceful as your destruction of the _Absolution_ , Captain?”

“The ship was dying, I put it out of its misery.”

“And her crew?”

“Unfortunate casualties.”

“You murdered those men and women, Captain Peavey. Over a hundred thousand First Order souls executed for no other crime than being aboard a crippled ship you had no use of. I agree, very unfortunate. How does your crew feel about it? Was it your hand that triggered the cannons or perhaps you passed the buck to a poor Lieutenant? Or maybe the weapons crew down in the pit? Did they gasp when you shot the first person who protested your order?”

Peavey's face twisted, his words snapping rabid, “Do not think me stupid. I recognized the ship you arrived with, the rebel scum you have made your tides to, and I see through your attempts to start a mutiny aboard _my_ ship, General. I assure you, your efforts are wasted.”

“And I assure you, they are not. I’ll see you shortly, Captain.”

The comm cut off immediately. Hux didn’t even have to give the order. Despite the state of its halls, Parnadee ran a tight ship.

Hopefully tight enough to hold out against the oncoming wait that would surely drive their dread to newfound depths.

“Prepare a transport for myself and Captain Phasma, and a TIE for our rebel pilot here. Peavey won’t be sending a team to board the _Conqueror_ , he will get to work on the slicing of her systems. Without a general’s command codes, he will not be able to do so quickly though.”

“And if he has those, then what, we’ll all die?” Truly, the question of the hour.

Hux pressed his lips together, inclined his head, “He doesn’t, but I’ve a team who will assist against the slicing. All I need is enough time to get aboard the _Mandator_ and take command.”

“You’re so confident?" Parnadee breathed. "With all due respect, General Hux, how can you expect me to put my entire crew at risk for a plan that hinges on Captain Peavey’s incompetence? He’s hunted us for the last six months, I will not be insulted on my own bridge.”

Unconvinced, but aching to be proven wrong, Parnadee stared up at Hux with a desperation he would have not understood, not before. And Hux could not fault her doubt. Not when she’d come this far on her own. Like the _Finalizer’s_ crew, when they’d put their future in the hands of some rebel outpost, casting their own ship into an unfamiliar atmosphere, hoping the intentions of the people they sought for help were as true as their reputation rumored.

Hux took a breath, released it quietly. Watched as Parnadee’s face fractured open - all the stress of the last several months bleeding free with a quiet fury. And then he reached into her, and he found the shape of her heart, and he tugged.

“I am not insulting you at all, General Parnadee. You kept nearly four hundred thousand First Order souls alive with a crippled ship while being hunted by someone who should have come to your rescue. You answered a vague call to action for the sake of your crew’s survival and trekked into enemy territory on nothing but a thread of chance. And you’re here now, fighting for that same crew in the face of your own death. You have nothing but my utmost respect, General, and I will do everything in my power to make sure you and your crew did not make this journey in vain.”

Parnadee had never a woman of many emotions. None of them had, the generals of the First Order. Emotions had no place within the duty of their positions, but before him Bellava broke down. The past months and weeks and days having harrowed from her something so deeply buried that Hux could not help but see reflected in her, the very same journey he had set upon. Conditioning fell away in favor of humanity, and when he reached out to clasp her shoulder, he did not hide the tremble in his own hand.

Her eyes did not weep, when they lifted to hold his, but they were filled with something that struck far deeper than any tears could.

_Hope._

_-_

The flight-suit looked good, it looked _damn_ good.

The TIE fighter before Poe gleamed black enough that he could examine his reflection in the sheen of her shields, and he had to admit…at least when it came to uniforms, the First Order had gotten _something_ right.

“Dameron, why are you grinning?” Phasma sighed as she tugged the last belt into place, securing the seal of his flight-suit, a precaution he had always taken even if he’d yet to get ejected into the vacuum of space. He wasn’t _that_ reckless.

“I look good. Don’t you think I look good? Think I would have made it through Order ranks just based on how good I look in this flight-suit?”

Her snort was derisive, the mirthful flash of her eyes sharp. Her voice, laced with amusement, “You’ve already fucked our general, what more do you want?”

Poe’s grin was playful. Turned absolutely _lecherous_ when he saw the aforementioned General appear across the bay, so slow in his approach, eyes roving over Poe with that carefully composed expression Poe knew hid all his best thoughts.

“Poe-” said Armitage as he stepped up beside Phasma, voice trailing weak at the tail end, like he meant to keep speaking but had lost all his words. _Speechless_. Poe looked so good he had left Armitage _speechless_.

“Evening, General Hugs,” Poe fell into his role, a role he couldn’t help but be excited to play, even if it involved flying right into enemy fire, as if something like that had ever stopped him before. “First Order pilot Poe Dameron _at your service_.”

When Armitage’s lips pressed into a line, Poe bit his instead. Armitage’s flush, when it came, was the prettiest, most delicate pink. Poe couldn’t stop the somersaults that took up space in his stomach. Refused to acknowledge they were just as inspired by the look Armitage was giving him as the mission they were about to embark upon.

“You two are disgusting,” muttered Phasma as she shoved Poe’s helmet into his arms. “I’m going to load up the platoon, make the last checks on the transport. You have ten minutes, tops.” The last part she directed at Poe, as if it wouldn’t take him less than five to get out of this thing, and another ten just to get back in. Let alone everything else in between.

“Aye aye, Captain,” Poe chirped with an overly flamboyant salute, even though Phasma’s back was already turned, the ice blond of her hair barely concealing her mocked disdain.

Armitage, when Poe turned back to him, looked like he had been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

“Are you…” Armitage trailed off again, this time in tandem with the path his eyes took across Poe’s face. Poe wondered if Armitage’s expressions had always been this easy to read. If everyone else could also pick up on all the little microshifts, the things that said so much more than any sneer or frown ever could. Or maybe they were all for Poe, maybe he was the only one who could speak this language, like the secret code Armitage and Phasma used in _Force_.

“Am I always this devastating in a uniform? The answer is yes. Every time.”

“Poe, that’s not,” and there it was, the smile Poe had sought. It broke free, a momentary sundering of that shifty mask, exposing a fleeting glance of the man underneath. Poe wanted to reach out, capture him, draw him to the surface and make him stay. Discover what he would feel like against the press of his lips. Instead he pushed a hand through his hair, loosening his curls into something so messy as to surely be out of Order regulation. And it worked. Armitage fractured again, a little deeper, a little longer, breathed out quietly, “You do look good. Very…orderly.”

“General, Sir, are you coming on to me?” Poe placed a hand on his own chest, made his gasp bashful. Made his eyes smolder, as he turned his head just right, so a loosened curl of hair fell over his brow.

Armitage swallowed. It _definitely_ made a sound.

Poe’s laugh was low and knowing. Because this was easy. Always had been, always would be. So much easier than any goodbye, than some force-cursed final farewell.

Poe had made it a point, a long time ago, to never say goodbye before a mission. Goodbyes were too final, suggesting an end that no one wanted to confront. And Poe had yet to confront one, had yet to have his luck run out, so who could blame him if he’d become a little superstitious over the years.

But never before had anything felt as final as this. If a goodbye were to be uttered, now was the time. Not because of some pilot’s superstition, but because Armitage was back with the Order, whether he had realized it yet or not.

When Poe looked to the shuttered mask that had once again fallen over Armitage’s face, Poe thought, maybe, he was finally beginning to understand.

“Thank you for this.” Armitage held Poe’s datapad out, the black of its housing worn gray, the bottom left corner just a little cracked. Poe took it, idly wondered if he shouldn’t let Armitage keep it. There were memories on there, his memories. Holos and recordings and messages that told so many little stories, mundane things that Poe would take for granted, but he had a feeling Armitage would cherish, if it was all he had left of Poe.

But that too, would feel like a goodbye. And Poe was not going to say goodbye. The words wouldn’t come even if he tried.

“Does Rose have everything she needs?” he asked instead, tucking the datapad into his flight-suit pocket.

“The program I coded for her will monitor the network security weaknesses I am aware of. Unless the _Mandator_ has a network technician more knowledgeable than myself, the _Conqueror’s_ own security and my program should catch most slicing attacks.”

“And if not?”

“Then let us hope Ren remembers his Supreme Leader command codes.”

Poe grinned, stepping a fraction closer, “Glad I’m gonna get another chance to pilot a TIE. You ever fly one of these before?”

Armitage’s eyes flicked up to observe the TIE, catching instead on what Poe assumed was their shared reflection, by the way his eyes slowly moved over something Poe could not see.

“I have never flown a TIE. Did Phasma go over the flight systems or do I need to have a pilot show you?”

“Naw, she showed me the important stuff.” The propulsion booster, the turret controls, the comm scrambler, the emergency evac lever.

“And the astromech?”

“Not too friendly, that one, a bit of a know-it-all if I’m honest,” from over his shoulder he heard the indignant chirp of the BB-9 secured in the droid port, he hadn’t taken a liking to Poe. Most of the Order personnel he had interacted with hadn’t taken a liking to Poe.

Poe just figured they were jealous of how good he looked in their uniform.

“And your flight-suit fits? The seals are secured?”

Secure was one way to describe them, “Why, you trying to get me out of it already?”

Armitage outright flushed then, face twisting alongside the blossom of red, “I only want to insure your-”

“Armitage,” Poe closed the distance, finally stepping up flush against Armitage, needless of the surrounding hangar bay and the Order crew that manned it. “I’ll be okay. Stop worrying.” He said it softly, daring to reach out to the hand that had fallen out of Armitage’s clasp - touch the pale strip of wrist he knew he’d find there, above the leather edge of his glove. “Everything will be okay.”

“You’re so sure,” he breathed, eyes roving his face for an explanation, like Poe’s confidence was something to marvel, a curiosity he could only observe from afar.

“Of course I’m sure. Because I believe in myself, and I believe in our friends, and I believe in _you_ , Hugs,” Poe said it with all the strength he felt, the confidence that had always been as natural to him as the curl of his hair, the snap of his reflexes. Before him, Armitage stared down with a barely concealed wonder.

And a fondness, a fondness that almost felt sad.

“This doesn’t bother you, me, like this?” He asked quietly, ominously, as if Poe might not know what he was talking about. Poe let himself examine Armitage from a vantage outside his own experience. Saw a man in his natural habitat, playing a role he had been groomed his whole life for, making decisions that would affect not just himself, but hundreds of thousands of souls depending on him. And then there was Poe, just some rapscallion pilot with too much luck and really great hair.

First Order or not, Hux as he was...he was incredible.

“Not at all, General, sir,” Poe said with all the fondness he felt, an honesty that was as genuine as the words he spoke next. “I love you, Armitage. All of you.”

Armitage looked shaken, in all the _best_ ways.

“We don’t have much time,” said with his breath, as Armitage dropped his head down so their foreheads nearly touched. Around them, the _Conqueror’s_ crew toiled over the final preparations of their ships, but Poe could feel their attention, the brush of their glances as they watched General Hux crack open for this rebel while all could see. “Poe, promise me you’ll be-”

Poe captured Armitage’s words with a kiss. It was soft, and it lingered. Continued to linger, long after he drew away, but only in favor off tipping his forehead to rest against Armitage’s. They stayed like that, lips hovering a breath apart, as the galaxy spun on around them, caught in a moment together that Poe bottled up and stuffed away somewhere time could never reach.

When he pressed his hand over Armitage’s heart, he could feel the faint outline of his mother’s ring, tucked safely away beneath his uniform and the body armor he wore underneath. The hangar around them remained quiet, despite the weight of the stares. Armitage didn’t seem to care. Poe counted it a victory, a claim he could make in the future, when everyone doubted that Armitage had ever changed at all.

“Go on,” he said eventually, time ticking away despite how frozen he felt in this moment. One that might be their last. “I’ll see you aboard the _Mandator_.”

Still, he would not say goodbye.

Poe would never say goodbye.

-

The seat of the TIE was far more luxurious than any X-wing Poe had flown. It conformed to his body, holding him tightly while adjusting to his height, his girth, and the reach of his arms for the flight stick. The rituals Poe had grown comfortable with, dependent upon, if he were honest with himself, were shadows of what he would have performed if this were _Black One_. Instead of the manual switches that would warm the TIE’s engines and engage the flight gear, there was a touchscreen with a computer that controlled all operating functions. Above his head, where _Black One’s_ hatch would have lowered down into place, the TIE’s transparisteel closed together like a clamshell on its side, covering both him and the BB-9 unit that would serve as his astromech for this short, yet sure to be treacherous flight.

Four thousand five hundred and thirty two meters between them and the _Mandator’s_ main hangar bay. Four thousand five hundred and thirty two meters of a Dreadnought’s hull manned by over two dozen defense lasers. Four thousand five hundred and thirty two meters that should take less than twelve seconds to close, if he could open the TIE’s engine and take off at full speed. But the transport he was escorting was not a TIE, and it was not fast, and it would need nearly two full minutes of flight time to close that distance. Almost ten times the amount of time as his TIE, which meant tens times the danger, and ten times the opportunity, for the _Mandator_ to get off just one good shot.

Poe had never been one to count his odds, but never before had the odds felt so grim.

This wasn’t the Galaxy in balance. This wasn’t even a whole planet at stake. This was just one man. But the man that Poe loved.

“Dameron on line, checking in, ready for flight,” he spoke into the comm, awaiting the confirmation that was sure to come, unsure if it would be Armitage or Phasma who would be commanding the shuttle’s flight.

“Dameron confirmed, prepare for departure. Ten seconds,” the voice was neither, the unknown pilot speaking in an imperial accent that was not nearly as refined as Armitage’s. Snobbish where Armitage was aloof. Almost over-performed, as if the accent had been adopted in some attempt to raise his station in the eyes of his peers. Poe knew it was cruel to think that way about a man he didn’t know, but now that he was stuck here in a ship he had only ever flown once, and subsequently crashed, just two sheets of thick durasteel and the soon to be emptiness of space between him and Armitage, he could not help but feel it should be him in _that_ pilot’s seat. The one that maybe mattered more, because then he would at least be beside Armitage.

“Countdown started, ten to takeoff.” The comm went quiet, the seconds passing in slow tendered silence. Too slow, Poe thought, as the hangar's exit loomed before him, the black swatch of deep space looking flat against the bright lights that lit the bay from above.

The transport lifted off first, crawling her way towards the hangar door in a lazy hover. The other two TIE lifted off nearly in tandem, and Poe felt the muted shudder of his own ship raise just a fraction later. Due to safety precautions, the ship AI would control their departure from the hangar, unless Poe decided to override her system. He did not. He let himself drift forward, fingers skimming the unfamiliar flight stick that would serve as his true connection to this ship. More than the safety harness that secured him to his seat. More than even the life support system that transformed oxygen into atmosphere so that he could breath inside the cockpit while tetherless in the nothingness of space.

The _Conqueror’s_ shields would protect them for the first thousand meters, and then they would be exposed; four tiny targets skimming the hull of the _Mandator,_ too close for the computer targeting system, so that whoever was tasked to gun them down would have to take manual control of the turrets. A small blessing, if they were to have any. Because nothing changed that there were only four of them and over twenty four guns, which boiled Poe’s odds down to six in one. Worse, when the transport was taken into account, whose weapons systems stood no chance against a TIE, let alone a Star Destroyer.

Space spilled over his cockpit, the horizon line of the _Mandator_ turned topsy, hanging from above so that the vertigo Poe felt almost made sense.

“Six hundred meters until we’re out of shield range,” Phasma said over the comm. “TIE to prepare for fire, all weapons authorized for use.”

“Confirmed.” His response came on the heels of the other two pilots, and Poe watched as they swept up overhead, to put themselves bodily between the _Mandator_ and the transport.

Poe checked his speed, did the math, and counted down the distance.

Five hundred.

Four.

Three.

Two…

Shield range came and went without so much as a shimmer of indication.

Without so much as a single shot fired.

Poe knew better than to let his guard down, knew better than to think they could make this flight without a single complication.

So it was no surprise when the telltale glow of a laser turret coming on line alerted him to its position. Here, underneath the _Mandator’s_ belly, it was more difficult to parse the placement of her turrets, or the locations of her gunner seats. And while the TIEs advanced gravity system would allow Poe to roll the ship upside down, take his aim form the comfort of a righted position, Poe’s job wasn’t to take out he gun turrets, not unless the other two TIE failed, because Poe’s sole objective was the direct protection of the transport, by whatever means necessary.

The gun turret bloomed with a blast of red, not from its own shot, but one taken by their TIE. One turret down, just twenty some more to go.

There should be more. They should be assaulted with a barrage of laser fire, not some singular charge that fizzled out before it could even make its shot. There should be TIE sweeping from the hangar bay, hunting them down like the targets they were, rather than this barely attempted affront to their too bold approach. Poe chewed his lip, flipped his TIE around to check their rear, again confronted with _nothing_ which in his experience meant something far worse than whatever his imagination could supply.

So he wasn’t exactly surprised, even if he was shocked, that when the killing blow came, it was from something he would have never, in all his experience, expected.

A spark of white, a halo like glow, and then, it bloomed.

The beam of energy swept from behind in a downward sloping arc, a beam meant not for fighters, but for planetary surfaces. The _Mandator’s_ auto cannon.

Poe only saw it because he was watching their rear. And there was nothing he could do as it cut through space in a bright white shear, bearing tears to his eyes as Poe squinted against the massive wall of light. But even as he saw it coming, and as his futile warning fizzled out alongside the static that tore through his helmet’s comm, Poe could only watch as the beam tore right through the TIE to his left.

It didn’t so much explode as disintegrated, and Poe could feel the heat of the beam reach him through the cold expanse of space.

“TIE two down,” Phasma’s voice finally shattered brittle over the comm as the light died away, the interference from the cannon’s energetic debris still interfering with the signal well after the beam has dissipated. “Stay aware, they’re firing the fucking auto cannon.”

“Want me to take it out?” Poe asked, already planning his shot, the time it would take to get close enough that he could sweep underneath it and level his guns with the interior housing.

“Negative, Dameron. Hold your position,” Phasma snapped, not sounding panicked, but certainly not assured he would obey her command. It seemed his reputation really did proceed him, even across enemy lines.

“Tighten the distance between us and the hull, they won’t fire that cannon again if they think they’ll hit their own ship.” This time, it was Armitage’s command that came over the comm. Steady. Calm. Not at all fractured by the danger he was in, the danger they all were in.

Poe eased back in his chair, flicking the flight stick lightly so his TIE nudged upwards, following the slower ascent of the transport, as if he could bodily block a cannon beam with his ship alone.

He couldn’t, of course. But it never hurt to try.

“We’ve got about twenty seconds before they can fire that thing again.” Not enough time, Poe almost told Phasma, kept to himself instead. They were about sixty seconds away from reaching the hangar, fifty from entering the gravity field that would maintain the atmosphere within the open bay where it was recessed up into the lower hull of the ship. That would mean the _Conqueror_ could get two more shots off before they were safely out of danger. And two shots of that thing would be…well, it would be _enough_.

The second came right as _twenty one-thousand_ breathed past Poe’s chewed lips. It bloomed with the heat of an ion engine, blinding and awful and far too massive to maneuver around, not that Poe had to, not when the beam swung wide, sweeping below them in a shallow upward arc, not reaching them, but close. So close that Poe instinctively nudged up again on his stick, riding the wave of danger as if it would make a difference.

And maybe it did, because the next thing he knew, the remaining TIE beside him jerked upwards and then sputtered dead, lost to a glide that took it careening into the _Mandator’s_ hull. It flamed, briefly, the oxygen of its tanks exploding in a shower of quickly smothered fire, and Poe was already too far away to see if the pilot had made it out safely. Not that there was a rescue coming. Not when an auto cannon was between them and whatever rescue team the _Conqueror_ might send.

Poe realized, as he watched the shattered material of the TIE catch the light of the hull in dusty sparkles, that it had been the heat from the cannon that took out the ship - burned out its circuits, its controls, likely its very pilot.

Well, it wasn’t the _worst_ situation Poe had ever been in.

But it was close.

“Dameron, you need to get to the hangar.”

It burst over the comm, Armitage’s voice, still controlled, still calm, but the words stretched through the speaker, their meaning tainted with the fear Poe somehow didn’t feel, but knew Armitage must.

“Not leaving you behind, Hugs.”

As easily as it had been constructed, Poe’s character broke - just like his formation, as he swept beneath the transport, ready to do what he had to when in fifteen seconds the last beam came. And he saw now, how the transport’s lower hull had swelled and warped from the heat of the beam. How it struggled to gain the momentum it needed to angle into the hangar bay above.

It wouldn’t make it.

 _Armitage_ wouldn’t make it.

“Get to the hangar, Dameron, _that’s an order_ ,” and this time Armitage’s voice did break. His snarl cracked over the comm, breaking apart with the interference, or something else.

And maybe this was how they would spent their last moments together, fighting over a comm as each tried to save the other, while the galaxy around them ambled on in age old orbits, indifferent to these two which had somehow aligned against all odds.

Poe didn’t count odds, though. So he aligned his ship just below level with the transport, nearly touching, barely skirting.

Five seconds.

Four.

Three.

Two-

And then everything came together in one ruinous crescendo.

The cannon took its final shot, all hot white and too bright, sweeping in a shallow arc towards the underbelly of their ships. The gunner knew his mark, now. Had learned the lessons of the two past near hits. Understood that all he needed was to get close enough to compromise their electronics and then let momentum do the rest.

The beam of burning light closed the distance in a catastrophic inferno, burning so hot that Poe felt it on his face, through his suit. Smelt the acrid tang of burning electronics as the computer screen on his dash shivered with static, and the comms cut cold.

And he watched as the transport’s compromised hull heated to a glowing orange. Watched as the engines sputtered weakly and then flooded out.

Watched as Armitage’s ship staggered in the air, listing into a forward momentum that would take it directly past the entrance to the recessed hangar bay, missing its mark entirely so that it drifted off into deep space, where the _Mandator_ could find its mark without risk.

It all happened in slow motion: the approach of the beam, and all those moments before it, the ones Poe had spent with Armitage over the last days and weeks and months. And Poe knew what he had to do. He nudged the stick, gave it a twist, felt as the TIE rolled underneath the transport, just between him and that awful sundering beam, ship shuddering, durasteel heating, and then he pulled up.

His TIE collided with the transport with a teeth grinding scream. The collision jolted through the cockpit of his ship, marking the transparisteel with thick gouges, as he ground along the underside of the transport’s belly, pushing it bodily out of harms way, up towards the wedge of light that marked the open hangar bay with the last rumble of its failing engine.

 _We’ll make it_ , he thought, as his TIE sputtered dead and the lights winked out and the flight stick gave way to a deadened freeze. Hope bloomed as their ships careened towards the open mouth of the hangar, closing the distance quickly, just a few hundred more meters, that’s all it would take.

But then the gun turret above them bloomed red.

A volley of lasers cut through space, barely missing the transport, streaking by in quick succession, until the last of the bolts found their mark not on Armitage’s transport, but with Poe’s TIE.

If he had thought the heat of the cannon had burned hot, nothing could have prepared him for the feeling of the air in his cockpit erupting around him, the sensation of metal shattering to fragments beside him, or the cool relief that came when the vacuum of space swallowed him whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your feedback is precious to me, as this and the next chapter are probably two of the most important chapters of this whole story, Thank you for sticking with me this far! It means the world ♥


	13. The Mandator

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: a very brief mention of unacted upon suicidal thoughts during the first segment.

The ship screamed. She cried. She fought and she denied. And she wept with the blaring sounds of her systems gone critical, her final moments spent harrying her crew from her hull for a safety she could no longer provide.

Within her, Hux tore and screamed and fought to claw himself to the surface of his existence - away from something that kept dragging him under. A something that threatened not just his physical wellbeing, but the mental trappings of a mind already worn thin. What was wrong, he refused to acknowledge, because the admittance would be his end. And yet it stared at him from that dark place inside, that place he had never really been able to escape. A place where his father still hid, and Snoke’s gnarled face still watched. Where Kylo Ren’s Force amassed, the furrowed eddies of its trenched path leading Hux, unfailing, towards that festering pit deep inside him.

Something was wrong. Something was critically _wrong_.

Hux gasped to awareness, to pain and to panic. Vision swimming, the cant of his head hanging strange, the smear of red in his vision a warning. Hux pressed his hand to the side of his head despite the pain it caused. Gasped as that pain pounded alongside the alarms, aching echoing throbs that beat at his brain with the pulse of his blood. And when his glove came away wet, blood running free from a laceration to his scalp, deep, but not large, his skull tender, but not cracked, his mind scattered, but thought still intact, he knew whatever was so fundamentally wrong had nothing to do with him.

His memories crested, drowned out by a wave of nausea before they could surface alongside the cataclysmic thunder of his heart.

Below him, Phasma wrenched at his safety harness, hands moving fast over the quick release clips, his body half suspended from the seat that had likely saved his life. Around them, the transport tumulted in its death throes. The viewport screens were useless, already cracked so badly as to produce nothing but the static of damaged electronics. But Hux knew they had made it into the hangar, had crashed into some unknown object that had wedged their transport up into a sever tilt. From the broken console a thick acrid smoke leaked, filling the cockpit, finding its way into his lungs. It made his throat feel like it was bleeding, the taste of electricity collecting on the back of his tongue no matter how many times he swallowed.

The pilot of their tiny transport hung beside Hux. Body mangled, a wedge of the broken console plunged deep into his chest, dark hair loose over his unseeing eyes.

Dead. He was dead.

Memory crested once again, bare for but a moment, a moment that plunged Hux into the darkened depths of his subconscious, fighting against a thought that would surely take him under with it, if given a chance.

It was just a dead pilot. One of many Hux had lost, but not- not _him_ \- not- not the one who _mattered_ -

And then the memory broke the surface, a quick breach of the tenuous hold Hux had on his mind: a flash of dark hair, of darker eyes, and a smile so generous that it threatened to spill out of him something as acrid as the smoke leaking from the console. Images and sounds and the final message of a man Hux had- he had- he _was-_

_No._

He would not think of _that_.

He _could not_ think of that. Not now. Not ever. Not if it meant-

No. No. _No_ -

Hux closed his eyes, closed his mind. Closed his mouth over his _scream_. And he shoved himself back into place, stuffed all the little broken pieces into whatever shape he could manage. But they wouldn’t stay. They kept sliding through his fingers, like Hux was no longer solid but made of mud, and these waves of memory would dissolve him until there was nothing left but a million scattered grains of sand.

And his grip was slipping, the pieces _falling-_

His boots hit the uneven ground with a dull thud, his legs collapsing under this _weight_ -

When Phasma hauled him to his feet, then turned and slammed him into the side of the transport, Hux gasped. Pain exploded through his head, made him cry out, made his eyes water with tears he struggled to keep inside, and it all felt like a transgression, a breach of conduct he was not privileged to have. Because Phasma’s face, when she leaned in close, was twisted into a half snarl. And her eyes, so cold from where they stared, traded emotion in favor of resolve.

An expectation. One spoken clearly in the way her fists gripped his jacket.

Strong. Phasma was _strong_. Phasma expected _him_ to be strong.

But Hux wasn’t strong. He hadn’t been strong in such a long time. Maybe not ever. Except when- except when _he-_

“Armitage,” Phasma snapped at him, the hands at his shoulders gripping so hard the pain fought against the throb of his head. Something was digging into his back, it was sharp, piercing, a focus for him to hone down on. “Snap the fuck out of it.”

He pushed into the pain, ground his spine against the sharpness, jerked his shoulders beneath Phasma's hold. A snarl escaped him - a single wrench of emotion, despite the thoughts he would not let fully form. And then he stoppered it all up against the pain, shaking and pulsing and screaming for release. It wasn’t right, he wasn’t _whole_ , but he came together in a shivering golem of half-life. A thing that could walk and talk and act like a man, but whose heart was rendered null, a hole in his chest that would never again be filled. Only made mobile by the implacable force of his will to survive.

He had done this before. He had survived. He _would_ survive. He would persevere, despite this setback, despite this- this panic- this dread- this _anguish_ -

No. Shut it out. Shut it _down._

His mission. He had a _mission_. He had to complete his _mission_.

Phasma’s eyes burned into him, held him to that expectation. The promises he had made to others. To people who still needed him. Needed him to pull through, because there was no one else. 

Hux was all that was left. It was only him, now.

His hands shook when he lifted them, flushed cold from the shock he felt poisoning his veins. Still, he shoved Phasma’s hands away, shakily smoothed them down the creases she had made in his jacket. And when he tugged at his cuffs, they closed over his wrists until all that was exposed of him was the twisted bloodied mar of his face.

“Alright?” Phasma not so much asked, as stated.

 _No._ Hux wanted to say. Wanted to _scream_.

Instead, he shut down. Down to nothing. Emptied of everything but that darkened pit.

When Hux lifted his head, Phasma was watching him closely. Her gaze lacked the concern Hux was afraid he might find, and for that, he was infinitely grateful.

He dipped his chin in a shaky nod.

Turned his back on the dead pilot.

Turned his focus onto the immediate situation at hand.

The cockpit was nearly completely destroyed, the shape of it warped from not just the collision, but the heat from the accelerated particles of the cannon that had nearly melted her apart. The door frame that led to the cargo area had folded upon itself, heated so severely as to weld the blast door shut. Behind that door was the platoon of troopers. Sealed away by this unlikely sarcophagus, fate’s grip on them already released - untethered - sacrificed to that beam of light as it burned through the dark, its mark found, its purpose served, its damage done.

Damage done, but to what effect? Because Hux still stood. He lived. And the Galaxy still turned. It still twisted round itself in awful relentless orbits, momentum unbroken by these wasted lives, these purposeless deaths. These already tiny fragile things that burned out fast enough without his intervention. Faster than the Galaxy could ever remember them, their memories lost to the sparking burst of light in the infinite pan of time.

The console at his hip sparked again, little living flames burning so bright and so fast, fading away faster than the bellowed burp of tinny tasting smoke could consume them.

Hux covered his mouth, the taste of bile thick on his tongue.

Closed his eyes in another moment of weakness, one that felt distant now, in the way a memory replayed too many times began to feel distant.

Beneath his feet, the transport moaned and shifted with the muffled rumble of an engine catching fire. Despite what awaited him outside this wreckage, he needed to evacuate the transport. And the only way out was the emergency escape hatch impregnated into the support cage of the port side wall.

The port side wall, which now may as well be the ceiling.

Phasma was strong. And she used that strength to heave at the hatch. An archaic thing with a manual wheel lever, it agonized open in slow dragging seconds, inches giving way to one, two, three full rotations, before yawning open to a spill of cold white light. Beyond the hatch, the _Mandator’s_ hangar hung still. Absent was the sound of marching boots or readied blasters, not even a single shout of command. No one appeared in the hatch - no trooper’s helmet, no Lieutenant’s cap. Only that cold white light, cast bright in a spotlight upon them, little embers of the sparking console twinkling like stars in the dark space of the cockpit. Phasma hefted her rifle into her shoulder, cocked and ready. Waiting.

Waiting.

They waited. Time waned thin, threading fine through the sluggish pulse of every long second. The noxious smoke, where it rose, filtered gray against the white, spilling free in lazy curls to dissolve into the open hangar above them.

Hux felt something important inside him dissolve along with it.

“Well,” Phasma eventually sighed. “Guess I’ll do the honors, then.”

Experience, more than concern, made Hux reach out, place his hand on her arm before it could grasp the ridge. “Your rifle, first.”

Phasma’s mouth split sharp, her eyes flashing understanding, as she raised her rifle so the butt peaked out from the top of the hatch.

Nothing. Not a single whisper of life from beyond the hatch.

Hux had not gotten a good look at the hangar when they crash landed inside it - had not been able to do anything more than than brace himself against his screams, against the impact, against the inevitable surge of emotion that threatened to destroy him far more succinctly than any collision could. But even had the hangar been evacuated in those moments leading to their arrival, troopers should still be in position, should be at the ready to arrest them, to haul them out of this dying transport and execute them on the spot.

_Unless._

Unless his plan was working. Unless the hangar was empty for reasons far more important than the arrival of a traitorous general.

The arrival of a rumored savior.

A hero.

He wasn’t a hero. He knew a hero. A hero was- He was-

The hero was dead.

Phasma’s grunt as she hauled herself through the hatch was half pain, half victory, and fully distracting. Hux stumbled when he pushed away from the wall, when he pushed away from his thoughts.

“It’s empty. The fucking place is _empty_. What a karking riot.”

Hux blinked up at her shape against the light. Her armor, already so damaged, was scorched black, new dents pocking its dull surface. Its integrity, surely, had finally been compromised.

She needed to be careful, he distantly acknowledged. “They still shot us,” he said from afar. Then closer, “don’t let your guard down just yet, Phasma.”

“Never do, it’s why you keep me around,” Phasma’s grin was wide, feral, when she reached her arm down through the hatch to hoist him up.

It hung there, a tether he could take. A offer as much as it was his only option. He lifted his hand, hovered it just within reach, gathering together a conviction he did not actually feel, because outside this transport was a world he no longer knew the shape of.

But Phasma was not going to wait for him. She grabbed his wrist, hauling him from his feet while snapping, “Not leaving you behind, Hux.”

And that was it. That was all it took.

_Not leaving you behind, Hugs._

Hux faltered, his whole body jolting, as the final words of the man he loved were dredged forth to crash over his head with the strength of a storm. He would have fallen, if not for Phasma’s solid grip on his arm. But there was nothing he could do against the memories that swept him away.

Tendered to the black depths of his mind, the memory screamed to life: Poe’s TIE whining too close, too loud, the flat side of his wing nudging their transport out of the direct line of fire, the scorching red beams that barely missed their mark, only to find another, the explosion of debris as the TIE took the pulse of the laser head on-

_No- no- he can’t- I need to- I have to- Poe. Poe-_

“ _Poe-_ ” whispered ragged to himself, only to himself, and then he shattered apart.

Phasma hauled him into the white light of the hangar, so bright, too bright, all white and blinding and flushing the sight from his eyes but doing nothing for the thoughts in his head. His body dropped, heavy, _empty_ , knees buckling towards the still warm durasteel of the transport’s half melted hull. And he melted along with it, felt as his body flashed hot, then cold, and then numbed, bled out, a carcass, as dead as those troopers, as _dead as_ -

_Poe._

_Poe was dead._

Hux wailed. A long broken thing that wrenched out of him. The singular sound he made, before closing his mouth over his anguish in favor of trembling apart where he knelt. His body shook. The breaths he drew rattled in his soured chest, lungs wet with phlegm, with tears, with blood, like someone had taken a blaster and shot it directly through his heart.

Poe was _dead_.

And Hux felt like he was too.

Sobs rasped out weak and catching, breathless things that sounded too loud in the unnaturally quiet hangar, while the teeth of the universe tore him apart, piece by tiny fractured piece, to reveal the creature his father and Snoke and Ren had always known him to be.

Weak, coward, useless-

Poe was dead Poe was dead _Poe was dead-_

Phasma jerked him upright, held him aloft, hands fisted into his shoulderpads, pale stare spearing ice into his burning wet eyes.

“ _Shit_ ,” she spat it, dropped it at his feet alongside everything else that clawed at him, all the little tendrils of guilt and grief and denial that licked at what little was left. “So we’re doing this now?” said more to herself than Hux because suddenly the hold she had was released, and Hux was again curled over his knees, sobs wracking his body as Poe’s face swam through his thoughts, alongside all the memories Hux could no longer stomach.

When the bile clawed up his throat with the same searing intensity as the smoke that had filled his lungs, Hux did not even try to swallow it back. It purged from him, sick spilling down the side of the transport as he turned his head to retch. This couldn’t be true, this couldn’t be _real_ , this had to be a nightmare, his head wound warping his memories, or the poison from the smoke that clogged his lungs.

Because Poe was not supposed to _die_. It was supposed to be Poe at Hux’s side, to keep him going when nothing else could, to guide the course of his hand when Hux’s own judgment reared ugly and awful. But how could Poe do that if he was _dead_. And how could Hux be shocked when he had already learned this lesson? That the universe may lay its favor at the feet of the lucky few, but Hux had never been lucky. He had always paid a price. And it should come as no surprise that finally, the price asked had been too high.

A groaning sound and a dull slam barely registered, just like the next tremble through the transport barely caused Hux to flinch. It was all he could do to not grab Phasma’s rifle and end this for himself there and then, join Poe wherever he’d gone, in whatever peace was supposed to be waiting. But he knew enough, now. Knew there was no peace awaiting him. He knew that now with a surety he had never felt for anything else, before. Because this was the closest he had ever come, this painful assault of memory and emotion around a man who had made him hope for so much more, only to have it all taken from him in an awful reminder of his place in the universe. Where happiness was never something to be had but something that would destroy him, and how dare he ever forget that.

_Poe._

The shape of him traced through his mind, the cadence of his voice, his warmth, his touch, his smile, his laugh. It hurt. It all hurt so much. But it was all he had. And no matter how much it hurt, Hux could not let any of it go. Instead he gathered it to himself, collected it carefully, greedily, into a thing he could have forever. Something he would hide away from fate herself. A place he could go, inside himself, where the world could not reach him. Where he could be safe, safe with Poe, and safe from a galaxy that would only ever see him suffer. And maybe it was crazy. Maybe he had finally snapped, but Hux thought maybe he could stay there, forever in that place, alone with the memory of the man he had so desperately loved. Because he could feel Poe there, as if he were right beside him, the shape of his hand where it touched his back, and the velvet plush softness where his lips brushed his wrist.

But then the hand pulled away, and the lips receded, and it all slipped from his grasp, fading distant, a memory of a memory. And in its place was a mourning Hux could not escape. A sundering of truth that shattered the construct of reality Hux was never meant to live. So Hux sobbed. Quiet and wet, he let it all go, until the tears took away so much more than the pain. Took _him_ away. And everything inside Hux that felt like living.

Time passed in fractured parts. Too slow and too fast, from a distance Hux felt far removed from. Until eventually, when his tears had dried and the durasteel beneath his hands cooled, so too did the waves calm their crashing - ebbing placid, licking at his ankles where Hux now stood, staring out a lake that felt like an ocean, towards a mausoleum he once called home.

A breach of black against a too blue sky. A beacon. A calling. An unlikely comfort, where none else could stand.

And a reminder.

Hux released his breath, and with it the last of his sobs. Because he knew now, what needed to be done.

When he lifted his head Phasma met his eyes. She sat atop the wheel of the escape hatch, hunched over her spread legs, rifle resting across her thighs, pitted armor a memory of its former glory, as she stared sentinel across the hangar bay. Like a guard at her post, a soldier to the end, strong where Hux was weak. And as the smoke curled up around her in twining tendrils, framing her within a picture that ached painfully familiar, she held his gaze, and she said simply, “Better?”

There was no empathy, no kindness in that stare, or in her word. Just that burning expectation, and a fearsome confidence in him that Hux wanted to push away and scour from his skin. But he didn’t have that choice. He had never had a choice, not really. Because Hux was only ever meant for one thing. And that thing wasn’t peace, it wasn’t happiness, it certainly wasn’t love.

The only thing Hux was meant for, was ever meant for, was the First Order.

The First Order, who needed him. Needed him now, more than ever before.

Or Peavey would win.

And Peavey couldn’t win.

Where grief had burned through him, left behind the scorched fields of ash and smoke, something else sparked. An ember of a thing that smoldered with the fuel of his sorrow, tainted and familiar and lurking in his shadows.

Peavey was a threat to the Order.

And Peavey had killed _Poe_.

“Peavey-” Hux swallowed at the raspy sound, throat burned sour from the smoke, from his vomit, from his _grief_. “-Peavey will be at the forward bridge. We have to reach him before he breaks through the _Conqueror’s_ security protocols.”

Phasma nodded, an affirmation, face fierce in the exposure of his failing faculties. “And then?”

“I’ll-”

_I’ll kill him._

He would kill him. For the _Absolution_. For the Order.

For Poe.

_He took Poe._

He took Poe, and for that, Peavey would die.

Because despite his grief, despite his time at Poe’s side, despite the shape of the person he had thought he had become, Hux was nothing more than _this_ man. This man that fate had twisted him into, formed from the wet clay in his father’s image, made rabid by the spear of Snoke’s Force, and foolishly cast aside by the clutch of Ren’s hand.

“I’ll kill him,” Hux whispered, voice hardening over the words, tremulous things that he dared not speak but days before, when wrapped up in the arms of the man he loved. The man who had loved him. The only one who ever had. The only person who mattered. Who had ever mattered.

And now he was gone.

And Hux was alone.

So Peavey would die.

And Hux would save the First Order.

And then, he would see it flourish.

-

They stuck to the service passages, the droids they passed ambling along on protocol alone.

Phasma led the way, rifle edging along each turn of the corridor, every crossroads they encountered. The blaster Hux had at his hip had been taken from a dead trooper, his helmet cold, the hole in his armor still warm. There had only been two bodies, piled carefully atop one another, at the hangar bay door. Identity plates exposed and already accounted for, still, Hux had taken Phasma’s datapad, had documented their numbers, their classifications, their brief, if comprehensive, end of life requests.

And then he had taken their weapons. A blaster for himself, a second rifle for Phasma, and a coil of plastibombs that wouldn’t get them through a blast door but could take out most any other barrier.

The magnacuffs he had left behind.

The _Mandator_ was a massive ship, over twice the size as the _Finalizer_ , with service passages that switched back along their routes as to make the trek to the bridge a slow, teeth-grinding affair. That they had not yet encountered a single person would not be unusual, under normal circumstances. But Peavey should have alerted the droids to potential hijackers. Should have updated their protocols to report upon these passages being used by anything other than a droid.

Should have positioned a platoon of troopers down the next corridor, blasters armed and aims taken, targets to be eliminated upon first sight.

Instead, beyond each service door they passed Hux could hear the steady pound of boots, the muffled shout of voices - sometimes confused, sometimes angry - and occasionally, when the anger turned to fear, he heard the sharp whine of blaster fire.

The ship was in mutiny. Just like he had planned. Just like he had _known._

And Hux could not bring himself to care. All he could think about was what Peavey’s face would look like when he put a blaster bolt through his chest. How satisfying it would feel to step over his cracked open body and assume command of this blighted festering plague ridden hand he had been dealt, where happiness had been flaunted like a cruel joke.

“Do you have a bad feeling about this?” Phasma asked after another empty crossroads, voice cutting knife-sharp through the quiet. “Because I have a bad feeling about this.”

He did not respond. Had not said much, since they had clambered down from the wreckage of the transport.

Part of him was afraid if his mouth opened, something other than words might spill out.

Another part of him, a larger part, was afraid of what words he might speak.

So he followed Phasma’s lead, allowing her to shield their way forward, while he covered the ground they left behind.

And he let Phasma guide his thoughts. Let the sound of her idle chatter fill his head, rather than the screaming sound of a TIE’s wing scraping along their transport’s hull, the red glow of a laser melting through all that transparisteel, or the impact of his heart bursting in his chest, as fate took not his life, but the life of the one person in the galaxy Hux had thought immune to her trappings. He should have left Poe on the _Conqueror_. Should have never put him in that TIE. Should have let them leave together when they had the chance, stolen away on that secret transport, to live a life of anonymity among the stars.

Now Poe was dead. And despite the role Peavey played, Hux could not help but think it was truly all his fault.

“So I’m beginning to think this is a trap,” said Phasma from where she crouched.

Beside her arched a closed door that led to the main corridor that connected the forward bridge to the upper decks. The officer’s living quarters would be beyond these doors, the hallways too open to be sufficiently covered by a rifle and a blaster. They would be exposed, and among the men and women who would be most likely loyal to Peavey. But this was as far as the service passages could take them, the closest they could get to their target. And Hux could only hope that the _Mandator_ was operating under capacity, that her command was tied up with the mutiny, and that Peavey’s plan was to allow them to reach the bridge where he would make an example of the once revered General Hux: the bastard son of an esteemed Commandant and cowardly runaway who had turned traitor at the Order’s final hour, leaving behind the very men and women he now sought to lead.

A mouse droid nudged the toe of Hux’s boot where he crouched beside Phasma, nuzzling around the edge of his sole in search of its programmed cleaning path. He pushed it away gently before it could trigger the door, watching as it trundled off, seeking an alternative route to its most critical parameter, hyper-focused on the single task it had been given, mindless with its need to see it fulfilled.

Hux did not have the luxury of a computer program. He had the unfortunate complication of emotions, and despite his once untenable ability to lock them away to uselessness, Hux found himself unable to completely stay shut down. Precious spans of emptiness would bloom, where thought fizzled down to instinct and the coldness in his chest felt like relief; and then everything would rear to life once more. The sounds, the images, the _memories-_

And then his anger would roar to a fury, and Hux found his way forward, step by heavy step.

The messages he had sent to the _Conqueror_ had been simple, near wordless confirmations: Boarded, En-route, Dameron down.

Dameron down.

Hux swallowed, throat catching dry now that the bile had been purged. Phasma had not said much, when he’d asked for her datapad to send the message to Poe’s friends, fingers shaking so violently as he typed that it had taken him nearly thirty precious seconds to get the words out.

Time. Something he never had much of - had even less of, now that moments meant lives and the only future Hux dared imagined involved him killing the man who had taken everything from him.

What would Poe have done, if he were here beside Hux, crouched low in some service passage, weighing odds like he had a choice, like the obvious solution wasn’t the very thing staring him down the nose? Poe hadn’t depended on plans. Poe had let luck lead him, had let her lead him right into fate’s hands. And then he had faced her head on, without fear, without reservation, wholly committed to the risk, all for sake of what he stood to lose.

Poe had died, but he had died for _Hux_.

So Hux knew what Poe would do, if he were here at his side, creeping through some cold corridor on a ship that wasn’t his, the lives of so many dependent upon his ability to face fate head on.

“Forty meters up ship we turn right, fifteen meters more, and a left turn. The bridge will be at the end of that corridor, approximately thirty meters of open breezeway between the crossroads and the bridge’s blast door.”

The map glowed up at him, the tiny holo projected clearly enough to denote the various doors and security cams that lined the halls. The entire path to the bridge would be under observation, and if there weren’t guards already stationed, they would arrive shortly after their exposure. “We should run, if we can.”

“It’s too fucking quiet out there,” Phasma growled as she hefted her rifle aloft, giving the safety one last check and insuring the power cell was primed. “You got body armor on under that thing?”

“Light armor,” said simply, without inflection. He hadn’t had time, hadn’t thought to ask for something heavier. Had thought for sure he’d be flanked by a whole platoon of troopers, rather than one veteran Captain and her compromised vanity armor.

“You can take a hit from a blaster but nothing more. So don’t go and get shot, Sir,” Phasma clucked, as if Hux wasn’t well aware of the risk he was asking of the both of them.

The service door slid open with a silent _whoosh_. Beyond the threshold, the corridor was quiet. So quiet, Hux thought for sure someone would hear the rush of his very blood as it pooled in his stomach.

The mouse droid trundled past, protocol leading it down the hall in the direction Hux should be headed. He watched it from his place near the floor, still crouched low, still gripping his blaster as if it would make a difference against a security detail of highly trained stormtroopers.

“Clear,” Phasma whispered from where she knelt, rifle level at her shoulder, sighted down the hall where the mouse droid ambled along entirely indifferent.

The sounds of their footfalls as they slipped through the threshold echoed too loud in the corridor. The melodic chirp of the mouse droid too familiar to be a comfort in this unfamiliar hall. It was possible that Peavey had taken command of the lower bridge, had come to his senses and made his stand in the more fortified belly of the _Mandator_. But Hux knew Peavey, and he knew himself, and he knew that to the Order, optics were as powerful as any superior officer’s command. Peavey would be on the forward bridge, surrounded by a vast expanse of transparisteel, presiding over his worldly domain like the Supreme Leader he imagined himself to be.

Hux had been that man once. Had stood upon a similar bridge. Had observed the depths of space like it was something to be tamed, too wild for its own good, in need of a strong hand, in need of order.

Peavey would be on the forward bridge. And Hux would reach him.

And then he would kill him.

“Let’s go,” his voice, when it slipped free, sounded as programmed as the mouse droid’s chirps.

The hallway slipped by, meters closing in staggered steps, mouse droid leading the way until the first turn arrived and it rounded the corner without them. Phasma made a quick check, called it clear, and then they pursued the droid down the hall. Five meters down, they encountered the first stack of bodies. Three laid atop one another in careful respect, identity plates revealed, armor sprayed black with dried blood. Just several paces down the hall several more bodies lay. These were more recent, their blood still running red, their bodies crumpled lifeless in the center of the hall, splayed out like puppets whose strings had been suddenly, cruelly cut.

The mouse droid paused there, protocol demanding it obey its primary order and scrub up the mess - the _blood_ \- the leaked out life force of the fragile organic beings it lived its life in service to.

Service.

Duty.

Order.

Hux let go of the breath he had been holding, let go of the thoughts that clogged up his head and lumped in his throat.

Tried to let go of his fear, as they edged around the stack of bodies, more careful now, but even less prepared.

The sound of boots drew them up cold. They struck echoes through the open corridor, voices following shortly after, loud enough to be close, but the hall open enough that it became impossible to determine their source, not when a crossroads of four hallways converged but ten meters up, where lay the very juncture they desperately needed to reach.

“Back,” Phasma breathed, the tread of her sole squeaking as it slid through a trail of blood the mouse droid had smeared.

Hux took a single step back, and then all hell broke loose.

He saw the rifle first, when it slipped round the far corner, black against the gray durasteel, the red light of its power cell bold against the shadows. The helmeted head emerged just a fraction of a breath later. Expression empty, emotion un-bared, the stormtrooper paused, but Hux didn’t need to see a face to know the troopers shock.

Didn’t need to hear the shout of his voice when he cried out to his platoon, not when he was already running.

The sharp screech of Phasma’s rifle screamed through the air, the heat of the bolt searing enough to be felt on the back of his neck as he pursued a retreat. Noxious in his nose, the scent of burning hair curled sick as the bolt made impact with something; Hux couldn’t tell what, but he thought it might have been the trooper's head from the smell and the gurgling sound and the panicked shouts that quickly followed.

Hux didn’t stop to wonder. Didn’t stop to remember if the trooper had shot at them first, or if his shout had been in alarm, or in relief.

Realized, as he approached the turn in the corridor that would take them back to the service door, that none of it mattered, when the sound of marching boots echoed up the hall.

From around the corner, a second platoon of troopers emerged in full force, blasters leveled to sight, aimed and primed and heating with the burning red fury of a dozen bolts birthing bright. Time slowed as he was framed within this moment, what was to be his last, Hux idly thought, with a relief that at least now it would all finally be _over_.

Hux hit the floor with a muffled oomph.

Air left his lungs in a rush, sight swimming as his head wound was knocked hard against the blood stained durasteel beneath him. The weight of Phasma’s body held him down, covered him, as boots stomped heavy past his face, feet landing but inches from his nose, his sides, his fucking trembling hands.

Boots that were surrounding him.

Shielding him.

Protecting him.

_Just like P-_

Phasma grunted into his ear, a victorious thing, threaded through with a mania he recognized from years past, when regular field duty had been something she had insisted he maintain, despite the increasingly overwhelming hours spent at his desk.

“Would you fucking look at that,” she seethed brightly, as the troopers around them cut through their brethren in efficacious, if impetuous, aptitude. “Armitage you fucking genius.”

 _Hardly_ , he wanted to say. Wanted to _scream_ , not when his genius fucking plan had gotten _Poe-_

A body hit the ground beside Hux, head bouncing off the floor in a dull thud as it rolled round to face him. Hux stared into the lifeless face, empty of so much more than the identity the helmet hid. Compulsion nearly made him snap an order at the trooper, a snarled _get up and return to your position soldier_ as if the blood leaking from the blown out side of his head wasn’t a death wound. Wasn’t the end for this nameless trooper who had died defending a man who had left him behind, a man who had once promised him something so much greater than a life slaving away in an over-worked mine shaft, begging scraps from the hand that refused to feed him, growing up in the same kitchens his mother had been shackled to.

A life of purpose, and responsibility, and fairness, and _order_.

He didn’t notice when the blaster fire died out. Didn’t think much beyond the formless face staring at him from his place on the floor. His head hurt again, and his face was wet, and Hux would have thought he was crying except for the metallic taste of blood that leaked sharp between his teeth.

Phasma didn’t say anything when she hauled him to his feet. But he didn’t need her words to know her mind, to hear the _fucking pull yourself together_ that spoke so loudly through the harsh clasp of her hands on his shoulders.

Behind her, the platoon of stormtroopers fell into a salute. Eleven of them, the twelfth laid out dead at his feet. And beyond them, twelve other dead bodies scattered across his crossroads, the mouse droid beeping erratically as it tried to determine its best course of action.

Slowly, he dragged his attention back to the still living troopers. His troopers. His soldiers. They stood at frozen attention. Impeccable despite the men they just killed. Well, all but one of them, because Hux didn’t miss the catch in that trooper’s salute, the falter as he caught sight of his fallen comrade, the secret waver of emotion he had the benefit of armor to hide.

Hux wanted to tell him was okay. That he was okay. That he would survive this.

Instead, he clasped his hands behind his back, and he opened his mouth to speak words he no longer had a taste for.

“At ease, all of you,” his voice was clear, unaffected, as in control as he felt out of it, the fallen facade of his years in command erecting quickly around the person he really was, the person they could never see. Not because Hux was ashamed of that man, but because that man wasn’t who these soldiers needed him to be. “Who here is in charge?”

“Sir.” The trooper who stepped forward looked like all the others. Somehow, Hux was able to prevent himself from asking his _name_. “I’m troop leader TY-0909, it’s an honor to serve you, General.”

“The honor is mine, soldier. What is the status of the ship?”

“Infighting has taken over all levels. We’ve secured four through seven, with ten and twelve nearly cleared. Captain Peavey’s men are few but loyal. We prepared the ship for your arrival as best we could, but the Captain has locked himself in the forward bridge. Without access to the bridge we can not confirm the security of the ship.”

“And the status of the _Conqueror_?”

“I’m not privy, sir.”

Hux had assumed as much, that the bridge would have been locked in the presence of the mutiny. The bridge, with its own dedicated life support system, meant that it was entirely within Peavey’s power to end this mutiny by shutting down the _Mandator’s_ systems just as he was trying to do to the _Conqueror_. And if that were to happen, maybe not even the Supreme Leader’s command codes could save them.

“It is imperative that I access the bridge,” he left out the why, not when it would make fate all that more impossible to endure for these soldiers, if the worst came to pass. “What’s your rank, soldier?”

“Junior Lieutenant, sir.”

A child. A child in a soldier’s armor.

“Take your men and secure that crossroads, Lieutenant. Captain Phasma and I have work to do.”

“Yes sir.” His salute was sharp, quick, _proud_.

And his men were well-trained, solemn, as they stacked the dead in careful, respectful piles. The mouse droid chirped balefully at them, circling the pools of blood to impotent effect as its directives became overwhelmed.

“Hux.”

Phasma.

“ _Armitage._ ”

“ _What?_ ” He snapped, _snarled,_ as he rounded on her too pale face.

“What’s the plan?” asked as if he had one, as if any plan he could come up with wouldn’t lead to someone else’s death. As if Hux knew what the fuck he was even doing, anymore, when the sight of some nameless trooper was enough to bring him to his knees.

“We get on the bridge,” was as far as he had got. Then Peavey would die. And then Hux would be back where this all had started, as if nothing in his life had ever changed at all. As if Poe had never dragged him from the Steadfast, let alone shown him what it meant to live.

And as Hux stared into Phasma’s eyes, all he could think about was a blasted trooper’s blown open skull and a Junior Lieutenant who didn’t have a name, and how even that was his fault, in the way maybe all of this was. And if given the choice, he would let go. Let it all end. Become as empty as that dead trooper, head blown open in a death so instant it surely couldn’t have hurt as badly as he did then.

Phasma stepped up close, ice blond head bent down in private advisement, “Hux, you need to fucking _pull it together_.”

 _Fuck you._ “That’s _General_ , Captain,” snapped with a viciousness he actually felt. Fuck Phasma, fuck her and her fucking refusal to let him fall apart.

“Sir,” dripped from her tongue like venom, “we can’t secure the ship without access to that bridge,” _What the fuck are we going to do, Armitage, I’ve gotten us this far, now it’s your turn to pull through._

Could they reach out to Ren? Could they slice the system so it only required the code string, rather than the biological confirmation? They could, _he_ could, but it would take too much _time._ Time they no longer had, not if the mutiny on-board drove Peavey to purge his own karking ship.

“General, what is your _order_?” Phasma hissed as she pushed in close, eyes so heavy with expectation that Hux suddenly thought this would be what did it, what finally broke him, the failure his father had always expected: that moment when he led the Order not to victory, but to absolute ruin.

Over Phasma’s shoulder, Hux watched the mouse droid pause in calculation, as it decided the blood spilled over the crossroads was a bigger job than it could handle, and it should resume its scheduled maintenance cleaning.

Watched as it turned left. As it trundled its way onto the breezeway that led to the bridge.

Peavey had ignored the service passages. Had ignored the droids that could have given their position away.

Ignored the droids _entirely_.

Phasma barely budged when he shouldered past her, feet falling quickly as he closed the distance to the crossroads. Before him, the breezeway opened to deep space, the blackness a hollow visage that leaked inky through the blue light. If he looked, he knew he would find the _Conqueror_ docked off the starboard side, would see her dimmed hull lights winking weakly among the distant stars. Knew he would find the New Republic’s fleet gone, jumped to safety light years away, a safety Hux was never meant to know, only get a taste of, so fate could make it all the crueler when she tore it away.

And he knew he’d see the shattered wreckage of Poe’s ship floating dead among the scattered remains of the _Absolution_ , a fate even he had thought too unlikely to fear. A fate he had tempted to life, with his audacity that he could do this, any of this - save anyone when he had spent his life barely saving himself. He couldn’t save Poe, had in fact gotten him _killed-_

But he didn’t look. He couldn’t. Not when the mouse droid toddled its way forward, heedless of anything but its programming, never giving up on its mission despite every insurmountable setback it encountered.

Hux had tried once, to give up. Poe hadn’t let him then, and as Hux watched the mouse droid single-mindedly pursue its purpose, he realized he wasn’t going to let him now, either.

Poe wouldn’t give up. Not now, not when victory was so close.

The mouse droid paused, scanning a spec of dust in its path, sweeping it up and away, beholden to nothing but its mission.

It turned again, back on its path, a path determined by its programming. A programming that was taking it to the _bridge_.

“Soldiers, to me,” the command came forth almost too easily, and he would be lying if the thump of trooper boots assembling behind him wasn’t the most satisfying song he had ever heard. Phasma hefted her rifle from her shoulder as she stepped up to his side, attention falling upon the mouse droid as it slowly made its way towards the closed bridge door.

Her face lit manic, blue light edging her ghostly, like a vengeful spirit birthed to life. “ _Now_ you’re talking,” words whispered ferocious, behind teeth that should have sharpened into fangs.

“We go in shooting,” Hux’s voice bottomed out, the thinnest thread of glee curling alongside his exhale, “Peavey only. He’s our primary target.”

Lieutenant Ty acknowledged him with a firm _Sir_ , the sentiment echoed in the murmured confirmations of the men under his command.

 _His_ command, General Hux’s _command_.

The Stormtroopers flanked him, Phasma at their lead, barely a step ahead, all thirteen moving as a group. And it might have been his feet that propelled Hux forward, but it was the thought that Peavey would be his to kill that made him keep pace with Phasma.

Peavey had killed Poe. And now he was going to kill _Peavey_.

They moved quickly, closing a short distance that had felt so insurmountable but minutes before, following the path of a mouse droid as it reached the end of the breezeway, the automatic doors to the bridge yawning open on slow silent treads.

It should not have been so _easy_. He should have heeded easiness as a warning. When nothing else had ever come easily to him, that the revenge he sought would be dropped into his hands should have been cause for trepidation. Not even his father’s murder had gone this smooth, it had required planning, unlike this strange luck that guided him now. Because there Peavey stood, just beyond the opening doors, blaster in hand, shouting at a network technician whose hands were raised in alarm. From the console before him flashed a red status report - denials, Hux recognized, from the continuously thwarted attempts to override the _Conqueror’s_ systems.

And then Peavey’s words took shape, just barely caught above the muffled fall of their boots, _What do you mean the Supreme Leader’s command codes-_

The rush of his breath drowned out the rest.

Pushing past Phasma, Hux sprinted. He closed the distance on heaving lungs wheezing in pain, burned wet with the taste of that acrid smoke, eyes squinted to tears against the competing brightness of the breezeway and the dark operating lights of the bridge. And his heart pounded, knocking heavy against the twisted clutch of his ribs, threatened to crack them wide open. But instead he let all his anguish spill out with his voice, a gnarled scream wrenched out of that deep pit, wild and awful and threaded through with a lifetime of grief. Of pain. Of hatred for all the men that had had finally managed to take _everything_ from him.

_This is for Poe._ He thought, as he lifted his blaster and found his mark. _I'll kill you._ He affirmed, when Peavey looked up, to meet Hux's wild charge with an expression that morphed from anger to shock to _fear._

And Hux wondered then, as his boots hit the floor and the trigger depressed, if Poe had looked just as scared when he had faced down his death.

That was all it took. His step faltered, his mind floundered. The moment broke, only by a fraction, but long enough for Peavey's blaster to lift and fire first.

It was all Hux could do to keep breathing as red bloomed bright and awful, searing his eyes and blinding his vision. And he couldn’t help but think, _I've been here before_ , when the volley of shots erupted from the muzzle in beams of red. Hux closed his eyes against the burn of the blaster, felt each bolt streaking past him, singing his shoulder, shrieking in his ear-

-missing their mark, Hux realized, when Peavey let out a strangled grunt as Phasma's rifle found hers.

Before him, Peavey dropped heavy, body folding to the ground with a dampened thunk. Behind him, a loud crash; the sharp clatter of armor meeting the floor. And Hux knew, before he even had the chance to turn, what he would find.

As Peavey writhed and gasped at his feet, as the bridge fell hushed in lieu of the shift in power fluxing before them, and while he should have been claiming his place on the bridge as commanding General, all Hux could do was slowly turn around.

Knee to the ground, rifle braced against her shoulder, free hand cupped over a crack in her armor, a blackened crevice opened amongst Phasma's shadows. A wound that tore open her armor like cheap steel, to bleed ink against the dulled sheen of her glamour. And where Phasma knelt, she swayed.

And then, still gold against the dark, bathed ghostly in the dim blue light of the breezeway beyond, Phasma _crumbled_.

_No._

Hux dropped to his knees beside her. Peavey forgotten, mission abandoned. Again a price had been named, and again it was not his life that had paid it, but that of another.

_Phasma-_

The telltale click and whine of a blaster priming barely broke through the scream he hoped was only inside his head. But Hux didn’t care. Not anymore. Because too late he was realizing, if survival meant losing everything he cared for, Hux didn’t think it worth the cost to live.

But maybe in death he would get to see Poe one last time, in the Force, as the stories told.

Maybe he’d get his chance to say good bye.

“Armitage Hux,” heaved with labored breaths, voice cast out in a cadence all at once too familiar, “So fortunate you survived. I am going to _enjoy_ this.”

Hux closed his eyes, and he dropped his head, bared his teeth in a snarl as fate’s hand levered to strike one final blow. But the whine of the blaster never came, instead the bloated silence of the bridge burst into one catastrophic crash of sound. 

Peavey shouted, a shocked thing that seemed to only surprise him, because as Hux turned to see that the network technician had abandoned his post to instead tackle Peavey to the ground, while the pit crew reached up to grab at the guards who had ringed the room, and his trooper's commands to lay down their arms echoed empty amongst soldiers who had already discarded their weapons and raised their hands in surrender, Hux was held witness to his plan converging onto victory.

He had done it. He had won.

He should be excited, Hux thought. He should be _ecstatic_. The First Order was finally _his_ , but even as mutiny consumed the bridge, and victory swept fast through the men and women gathered there, Hux turned back to Phasma, his hands finding the places where Phasma the warrior gave way to Phasma the woman. The places between her armor where a pulse might be found, where a wound might be staunched.

Where a heart might still beat, where his only friend might yet still live.

His friend. Phasma. _Phasma-_

_“Phasma-”_

“Stop touching me,” rasped inky with the same blood that smeared black over the dull sheen of her armor. “How many times have I-” her words caught in a cough, as wet as the ink - as the blood - but _alive_. “-have I told you. I’m not interested-”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Hux snapped, hands shaking as he peeled the armor back to find a shard buried deep between her ribs, leaking blood in slow but thick rivulets. Too high to have missed her lungs, too low to have gotten her heart. A wound, but one that could heal, if attended to. “Shut the fuck up Phasma,” and those weren’t tears in his eyes, or a wavering laugh in his voice. Certainly, that was not _joy_ in his heart- not when- not after- not when _Poe-_

“Armitage.” Phasma’s glove was still hot with the pulse from her rifle where she touched his cheek, but even that didn’t burn nearly as much as the heat that bloomed with his emotion. “You did it.”

He had done it, but never before had victory felt so hollow.

Mere meters away, Lieutenant Ty was affixing a pair of stun cuffs to a snarling Captain Peavey. Beside him trembled the network technician, eyes edged white as he looked from Peavey to Hux with near fearsome pride. And all around the bridge, heads turned to observe him, there, on the floor, hunched over one of their own, face hardened against the tears he would never let fall, not when the men and woman of the Order looked at his like _this_. Looked to him for strength, for assurance.

For leadership.

For _order_.

Phasma’s hand fell from his cheek, shoved weakly at his side. _Get up,_ she would have said, but didn’t dare - not in that moment, so tenuously wrought that Hux knew without reservation that what he did next would forever define the direction of these men and woman’s lives. Lives he now held in his hands, despite how much they might tremble.

Slowly, Hux climbed to his feet. Slower yet, he turned to Peavey.

His breath was ragged, the rifle bolt to his heavy armor having collapsed the material into a sharp divot. It would have broken several ribs, perhaps punctured his lung. Wounds that would not kill him, not quickly, at least, if at all. He looked up at Hux from his place on the floor - his place on his _knees_ \- face twisted into a snarl so severe that Hux wondered how he had ever survived a man who harbored so much hatred for him.

Then he thought of his father. Of Snoke. Of Ren.

His blaster hung heavy still, gripped loosely in the curl of his gloved hand.

“Tell me one thing,” Peavey hissed, as his eyes listed to the blaster Hux lifted to level at him. “How did you get the Supreme Leader’s command codes?”

And this was it, he would do this, he would claim this for his own, tell Peavey _I am the Supreme Leader_ , and take complete command of the Order. He would have the codes, now. Have them logged and filed and secreted away from even Ren himself, recorded by the program he had given to Rose. The little string of code that would have captured every keystroke they entered and saved it to his personal data cloud on the Order net.

And he would kill Peavey. Would end this shit smear of a man who had cost Hux so much - cost Hux _everything_ \- everything that mattered. Everything in life he actually wanted. Everything that had made it worth living.

 _Poe_.

His blaster primed ready with a quite whine, the glow of its muzzle a beam of red, tearing through space like the bloodied hand of fate.

From his prostrated position, Peavey looked up, eyes blown black. A bead of spit from his snarl collected on his lip, as his face contorted with such virile revulsion that Hux couldn’t help but think that this was what Snoke had seen when he’d looked down at him from his throne.

 _I’ll kill him,_ he had thought.

 _I’ll kill him_ , had said _that_ man, the man he had once been, the man he still thought he was.

But as he stared down at Peavey’s sundered face, as he watched him bleed not blood but hatred, Hux realized he was wrong, because he was no longer that man.

And neither was he _this_ man, the one on his knees for the ego of another - not anymore.

Red bled to black as Hux lowered his gun, as it dropped to the floor in a teeth shattering clatter.

The bridge had grown quiet now in the absence of conflict, a tentative peace that smoothed the torn edges of these men and women who had been forced to turn on their own. And they watched him with the weight of a whole generation of people who had known nothing but this life, this world, and the laws and logic that shaped it. And now they knew what happened when those laws failed them, when logic gave way to mania, and order revealed itself as nothing but the guise of one man's clutch on power.

A power now clutched in the same trembling hands Hux clasped behind his back.

At his feet, Peavey was silent, teeth clenched in a grind. He glared up at Hux with an accusation that needed no words, not with how it bled out of him, like he knew precisely what Hux was about to do.

“Take him away,” he told Lieutenant Ty.

And then Hux turned away. Turned towards a fate he had once feared, but now knew, was his only path forward.

From the viewport he could see that the New Republic had made their jump. Only the sprawling expanse of wild space rolled velvet and winking at his feet, the glowing crest of the _Conqueror’s_ hull an arching breach in the darkness. Out there, in the Unknown Regions, were places they could hide. Places they could go to lick their wounds and gather resources, reforge alliances with the fringe factions that ran along those trade routes, where the settlements would be ripe for a source of stability within a world that did not know order. And there, they could maneuver themselves along the playing field until they once again emerged from that space with an untenable force of power, and claim their place among the wealth of the core worlds.

He could do it. He could take the Order for himself, lead them to the glory his father had always dreamed of, but had never been able to achieve. Pursue this burden of purpose he had inherited not just from his father, but from a whole generation of men like him. Men who saw power as something to wield like a weapon of fear and submission, rather than inspire, or nurture, infect even, into loyalty and idealism.

He could do it. He could make that choice.

But he wouldn’t. Because he wasn’t that man anymore. And because he realized now, none of this was his choice to make.

“I have an announcement,” he told the network technician who had shakily reclaimed his post. “Patch me through to the _Conqueror_ as well, I need all of us to hear this.”

Hux had made a promise to these people, that he would not just save them, but offer them a better path forward. And he knew now, with complete certainty, where that path would take them.

-

Men and women of the First Order, I urge you, lay down your arms against one another. The soldier who stands before you is not your enemy, but your comrade, your brother, your sister, your friend. The First Order was built not on adversity among our ranks, but on brotherhood. When a galaxy turned you away, the Order welcomed you. And she welcomes you again. Every one of you, without division.

Because the First Order is not the ship beneath your feet, or my voice in your ear. It is not the machine we have built, but the blood that has fueled it. You are that blood. And the heartbeat of the Order has always been found in her blood. You are the First Order, as much as the men and women beside you are. As much as I am, and always will be.

And it is critical to the survival of the First Order that you never forget this. That what I say next comes not as a shock, but as an opportunity. An opportunity for the First Order.

The New Republic has extended to us an offering of peace. A chance to seed Order values in a galaxy that once felt so out of reach. Now it is not just within your reach, but held in your very hand. Our enemy has never been the people of the Republic, but the broken ideals of a system that would turn its back on so many of its number. That back is no longer turned.

There comes a time in every person’s life when they are presented with a choice. Today, your choice is not between commanders, or between sides. It is a choice of life versus living, a choice that has no more consequence than the direction your future will take. A choice that can not be made wrong, but can not be made for you.

The First Order has prepared you for this choice. She has worked you from the clay you were born from into men and women who understand the critical need for purpose, the value of your brethren, and the indelible potential that can be found in the structure of order.

Now, you must put those tools to work. Not for the First Order, but for yourself.

-

Hux stood from the console, allowing the network technician to resume his position, to ensure the recording of his words would be heard not just to the _Mandator_ , and the _Conqueror_ , but all remaining First Order frequencies that could be reached.

Around him, the bridge murmured: a quiet susurration of conversations taking place in a privacy that had never before been afforded these people. They watched him with widened eyes, parted lips, and a question in their eyes. And Hux could not help but feel he was now surrounded by the men and women he had not so much saved, he considered, as released. The cage of Order command had been surrendered alongside his words, because Armitage acknowledged now that he was no more the General of these people than he was just another one of them.

The sensation landed strange, almost comforting. Maybe he was not as alone as he had always believed. Because his own words rang true: the Order was not the ship they stood upon, but a thing inside them. Something as fundamental to his being as the air he breathed, or the blood in his veins.

The love he had, would _always_ have, for Poe.

Poe would be proud of him, Hux thought. He’d be mad too, surely. But only because with his deliverance of the Order to the New Republic, his purpose would be served, and his fate would be sealed.

“Hail the _Conqueror_ ,” he told the woman who had stepped up beside him, the acting Captain in Peavey’s absence, “I need to speak with General Parnadee.”

It was not Bellava who answered the hail, however, but Rey.

“Hux,” she sounded breathless, a little tired, maybe a little proud. “You did it.”

“Yes,” he said, unable to hide that little bit of smugness, the very same that made him think of Ren and how often he had stormed from the _Finalizer’s_ bridge in a huff when one of Hux’s plans had worked, to his formidable dismay. “The _Conqueror_ , is she well?” He asked, in the loosest sense.

“Everyone here is fine, but Hux-” and he knew what she was going to say, and he swooped in before the words could come.

“Poe is dead,” he pushed the syllables out. Struck from them the tremble of his staggered breath, reporting the casualty as he might any other, but quickly, before emotion reduced him to a creature of instinct, too fearful of what his instincts might demand of him in that moment. “He perished during the escort-”

“Hux, he’s alive.”

It punched into him, like a blaster bolt to his chest.

_No._

Poe was not alive.

Poe was _dead_.

“Hux, listen to me, he’s on the _Mandator_. We- it doesn’t matter. He’s not dead, Hux. He’s alive-”

“Impossible,” Hux rasped, breathless and shaking. And then the sensation of Ren’s Force slammed into him, knocking from his mind the festering coil of his thoughts, to replace it with a vision, one so acute and whole that Hux felt like he’d been physically plucked from the bridge and dropped back atop the wreckage of that doomed transport.

Because there, just out of reach but so close Hux could almost touch him, was Poe.

Poe was alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be the reunion y'all have been waiting for. It would be a Christmas miracle if it got posted before the holidays are over, however. But I couldn't leave y'all with that last cliffhanger, so this one gets posted a little early compared to my usual schedule. Also, chapter count got bumped again during the last update. I no longer promise anything but that there is a happy ending coming.
> 
> This chapter was so important to Hux, and I really tried to spend the time it needed to make sure it landed right. Not sure I pulled through. This was a really tough headspace to get into, especially right now in my own life. Hopefully his journey through this felt earned. Even without Poe there to physically help him along, I hope it came through in his actions how much Hux has grown.
> 
> As always, your feedback keeps me going. Thank you so much for reading, it means the world to me!


	14. Adrift

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: While Reylo is a pairing, and they make an appearance in the first segment, none of it is romantic. Also, there is some smut towards the end, with no specific warnings, it's all very soft ♥

He woke not to the rush of sound, or the catch of his breath, but in long dragging pulses, like a buoy in a vast ocean bobbing above the crashing waves of tumulting sea. Poe had no anchor, no pulse of life to grasp hold of, because his body was cold. Too cold to feel much beyond the icy weight of shapes that should feel like fingers, like hands, like his nose and maybe his toes. Poe was numb, and he felt peaceful, and would have been happy to drift like that, except someone kept calling his name.

 _Poe_.

Relentless, the voice called out from the vast nothing that cocooned him. Not so much a person as a presence. Further away than even his unconscious thoughts. Someone who kept flashing a beacon of warning when all his body wanted was to float away. The voice, however, would not allow that. It harried at his edges, peeling back the cold to reveal first warmth, and then pain, and it was the pain that finally anchored Poe in his body - that drew his eyelids open.

He was floating, that was for certain, but it was no open ocean that had caught him in its current, but the absent vacuum of space.

_Shit._

Above him, the _Mandator_ loomed. Here, outside the cockpit of his TIE, it felt far larger than it had it had any right to, and Poe couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer impossibility, the incredible scope of human engineering that had brought such a massive monster of technology to life. And again, like that buoy in the ocean, Poe was content to drift there, a tiny speck of life in a galaxy far too large for _him_ to matter, caught in a current he had no control over, drifting away from a fate he had lost his grasp on.

 _Poe, can you hear me_?

He could. He could hear them - hear _her_ \- and suddenly it struck him that this was not some disembodied voice, but _Rey_ , reaching out to him through the Force.

_Rey?_

And when the relief washed warm and clean over the breadth of his mind, Poe was certain it was not his own feelings, but hers. Because with the restoration of his consciousness, memory slammed back into Poe with the same force as the volley of lasers that had torn his ship asunder.

_Armitage._

Wedged into the hull, the open hangar bay glowed a pale cool white. Poe was too far away to see any more than the shape of it, could not see any wreckage, or smoke or even the orange cast of a fire. All he had to cling to were those final moments, memories that assaulted him with their harrowed desperation, a reckless maneuver that would have succeeded if not for that fucking laser.

 _Poe, listen to me_.

Rey again. Rey, who was taking up too much space in his head, pushing out his memories in favor of the present moment, tugging him back into place despite the path his mind forged ahead on.

_Poe, I’m trying to help you. I’m trying to save you. You have to listen to me._

_Rey._ The strength of his thought made her pause, because Poe had to know- _Rey, did he make it?_

Her silence hurt far more than his body ever could. It stretched too long, too thin, before Rey finally responded.

 _Ben says he’s alive_.

Kylo Ren. Of course. Rey and Ren, two sides of a coin Poe would never risk flipping, not that he had ever counted his odds.

But as the _Mandator_ drifted by in slow aching inches, he thought maybe he should start.

_Listen, Poe, I think we can get you to the hangar, but you don’t have much time. You’ve been out there for too long, and Ben says those suits only have enough oxygen to last an hour._

An hour. Poe can’t help but think that would have been long enough for Armitage to complete the mission, if he’d more than simply survived the damage to his transport. Again he looked to the hangar bay, squinted against the warm running lights of the hull in a futile attempt to observe something that was literally, entirely out of reach. _Armitage_ was out of reach, and Poe could not help but think in so many ways worse than the physical.

_What do you need me to do?_

Rey was silent again, but this time her absence didn’t hurt so much as frightened him.

_Ben says he can move you, with the Force._

Of course. What was one human when Rey and Ren had the ability to move whole ships? But Poe heard the catch in her voice. Understood this was not as simple as Ren lifting his arm and twitching his fingers. Because this was not the Light side at work, but the Dark, and the Dark always demanded a price.

_He’s going to need access to your mind._

Poe would have swallowed if he had any saliva left. His mouth had gone dry, his body rigid, his mind hard. The price. He would pay it, of course he would pay it. There was no price he would not pay, to see Armitage again.

He had to get to Armitage. Armitage might still need him. To complete the mission. To save the First Order. Because Armitage would do it. He would succeed. And despite his refusal to say goodbye, Poe could not leave Armitage like this - let Armitage _leave_ like this - with the pain of Poe’s death - his sacrifice - weighing on his heart. He’d be committed to a life not just without Poe, but convinced of his death by what Armitage would deem his own hand.

_Alright._

The word did not come easily, nor did it come quickly. The touch of Ren’s Force, however, did.

Even if Poe had never been subject to Kylo Ren’s Force touch, he still would have recognized the taste of it. It snaked through his synapses like a poison, not so much finding the furrowed path it had once taken but forging new ones, burning through Poe’s head and leaving him feeling not just full, as with Rey’s, but too small. Ren did not fit, not only in a physical sense, but in the very nature of their diametric beings. Where Poe was airy, Ren was dense. And where Poe was content to drift, to bend and flex alongside the ebb and flow of his life, Ren crashed through with a shattering propulsion, a velocity that swept Poe up and away into this man’s control, a control he asserted with a swiftness that almost felt empathetic. But then Poe remembered _before_ , and he doubted that empathy to be anything more than the lingering touch of Rey at the edge of his mind.

And as Ren threaded into the fabric of his thoughts, and his mind spilled open to be privy to Ren’s private consumption, Poe realized this was what Armitage had to deal with on a daily basis. This violation. This weaponized assault on the delicate egis of something already so private for Armitage, that place he had built inside himself where he could escape the trappings of the world he had fought to have any sort of control over. No wonder he hated the Force - no wonder he despised Ren and all the men in his life just like him.

Something balked inside him, a twist of a knife in a spot that didn’t feel so much like it were inside Poe as it did somewhere entirely outside.

_I’m sorry._

Distant words. More distant than Rey’s had been. But before Poe could construct a response he was moving. Not drifting, but moving. He traveled through space in a slow glide, closing the distance towards the hangar bay in quickly depleting meters. Around him, debris listed - the debris from his TIE - pieces of the wreckage trailing a path towards the hangar in a shadow of their momentum. How Poe had ended up so far outside the wreckage he may never know. Maybe fate - maybe the Force - maybe that BB-9 unit that had gone strangely silent for the entirety of the flight. Or maybe just sheer fucking luck.

The hangar swallowed him in cool blinding light. With it came the sensation of weight on his feet, and then suddenly, Poe was collapsing to solid ground. He hit the floor with a relief that tasted as incongruous as the flavor of Ren’s Force separating from his thoughts in quick, staggered measures. Ren was as gone as Rey was there, filling in the gaps Ren had left with a warm soothing balm. He closed his eyes over the sensation - against the wreckage of the transport that smoked before him - and he clung to Rey’s words when she next spoke.

_I’m so glad you’re okay, Poe._

Poe wanted her to know he was too. Wanted to thank her, but she sounded distant, tired, like this endeavor had cost her more than a physical strength. And then she left him as well, abandoned Poe to this strange ship, this unfamiliar ground, where a battle was taking place not just for the survival of the First Order, but for the future the galaxy at large would see take shape.

Armitage’s future.

Poe fumbled with his helmet, released the latches and tugged it off to breathe in the sweet scent of recycled air, sucking in lungful after lungful. _Armitage._ Armitage was alive. He was _alive_. Poe had saved him. He had, he had done it, where so many other times he had failed. But not this time. This time his luck had pulled through yet again, just when he needed it the most, when _Armitage_ had needed it the most.

Poe closed his eyes, dropped his head to the durasteel between his hands, and he shook. He shook and he smiled and he bit his lip against the joyful sobs that threatened his already fractured composure. This wasn’t over, not yet, no matter how impossible this moment, but they were close. They were going to do this. _Armitage_ was going to do this.

“What the hell?”

Footsteps. Heavy ones. A whole platoon’s worth.

“Shit, man, it’s a TIE pilot,” a voice, modulated to a mundane uniformity. A Stormtrooper’s voice. Poe stayed as he was: collapsed on the ground, fingers spread over the comforting solidity of durasteel, head dropped to obscure his features. He wasn’t sure these troopers would recognize him, let alone if they were allies, or if he had traded a peaceful death for another far more brutal ending.

“The only TIE out there were escorting the transport,” another voice spoke as the sound of armor shifting came close enough that Poe had to look up. A trooper knelt on the floor beside him, helmet cocked to the side in question. “Hey, man, you okay?”

The trooper was as monotonous as the rest of his platoon, identity left to the unique warble of the voice modulator that gave away an outer rim accent Poe could place within the Batonn sector.

“Yeah,” Poe answered slowly. Let the words drag out, hopefully long enough that the troopers gave themselves away first, so Poe didn’t have to walk completely blind into his own death. “Yeah, I’m alright. My head,” Poe gestured at his discarded helmet, “it’s a little shook up. I don’t remember much. Just an explosion, and my ship-” he shook his head for good measure, “-think I crashed it. Or got it blown up.”

“You come from the _Conqueror_?”

No luck, because there it was, the question that would decide Poe’s fate all over again, because a wrong answer would leave him far more dead than even Rey’s intervention could salvage. But, he had come this far. And as grim as the odds he refused to count may be, he was still Poe Dameron - he had still skirted death by the skin of his teeth. His luck had not run dry. Not yet. He had made it this far - _Armitage_ had made it this far - and a platoon of troopers was not going to stop Poe from seeing this through to the end. Or seeing Armitage again.

“Yes, sir.” Poe eyed the blaster in his hands, the rigid posture of the troopers behind him, the short distance to the smoldering wreckage; knew he could maybe get two - three shots off before the element of surprise wore off and someone else got lucky. “Am I the only survivor?”

He held his breath as the trooper regarded him, as those behind him shifted with the quiet understanding that despite the uniforms they wore, the lines dividing the Order right then were as in flux as the thoughts running through all their heads. But then the trooper stood, and he held his hand out, and when Poe allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, he was met not with a blaster bolt to his head, but the clap of a friendly hand. Gravity was an unusual sensation upon his body, his limbs moving as if they were still caught in the vacuum of space, but the trooper helped him up, held him steady, until Poe could stand on his own two feet.

Like a friend might. A fellow soldier. A comrade.

“You got lucky, the rest of em not so much. Someone survived though, the hatch to the cockpit was opened from the inside. Whoever was in there is long gone now, though.”

 _Armitage_.

“It’s General Hux,” Poe said it proudly, “He’s come to help.” And the relaxed slope of the trooper’s shoulders said all Poe needed to hear.

“Yeah, we were hoping it was him. Ship’s gone into mutiny. We’ve secured what decks we can, but this ain’t one of them,” the trooper gestured to the men behind him, a signal Poe did not recognize beyond that it was a command. A trooper stepped forward to take his arm, and Poe nearly jerked it out of his grasp before he saw the small marking on their shoulder guard - a medic, this trooper was the platoon’s medic.

“Any known injuries?” The trooper asked as their fingers curled over his arm.

Poe relaxed, just a little. “No, Sir. Just a little knocked around.” The trooper maneuvered his forearm around to open a hidden panel on his flight suit, and a small screen flashed with a series of readouts that were more numbers than words. Whatever his vitals were, they must not be good, because Poe could feel the way the trooper’s grip on his arm tightened, and the heavy weight of their stare when the helmet shifted to regard him.

A long pause, then, “You’re hot as an ion engine,” said simply, and Poe thought surely a First Order medic would have better bedside manner than _that_.

Still, Poe couldn’t help but grin, “Sorry, bud, I’m taken.”

The trooper cocked its head again, hand flexing a fraction, before rolling their helmet in a way that could have been their eyes, “I’m talking about radiation, you’re way over the safe levels. You must have been out there a while. I’m going to give you a stim and a series of anti-radiation hypos, but you’re going to need to get treatment in medical and go through decontamination. Ever suffered from ARS before?”

Fuck. The _Absolution_ , of course he was _hot_. “Briefly, just a few days of nausea. That bad, huh?”

“You can expect worse than nausea. Medbay is secure but there’s fighting round the closest lifts leading to it. We can get you there but it will take some time.”

“I can’t go to medical,” said as the medic pulled open a seal on his glove to expose his wrist. The hypo-needle was cold against his skin, numbing the injection site of the stim. The anti-radiation injections that followed were harsher, hurt more despite the numbing agent of the needle, and there was nothing Poe could do to stop the way his arm ached and his vision swam. But even as he staggered, the medic catching his elbow as he listed forward and his blood stream flooded his brain with the sudden influx of drugs, all he could think was how he needed to get to Armitage. Armitage, who may be alive, but could be injured - or in danger - captured or _worse_. Poe pulled his arm free of the medic’s grip, took a step forward while breathlessly, he demanded, “I need to get to Armitage.”

The awkward silence that followed hung heavy, Poe’s slip a strange reveal that exposed him as something unknown, a factor they could not control. And Poe knew that made him _dangerous_. He held still, but hardly steady, rocking on his feet as exhaustion caught up with him all at once. Suddenly, he wished he hadn’t shrugged off the medic’s grip. And when he turned his head to regard the trooper who must be the head of the platoon, he wished he had done a lot of things in his life differently, the first of which being, not crashing every fucking TIE he’d ever piloted.

“We don’t know where the general is,” the trooper spoke calmly while hefting his blaster, edging the muzzle at an angle that would make it easy to level on him. Poe didn’t think it was a threat, just caution, because when the trooper asked, “What is your designator, pilot?” Poe knew he had been caught out.

Poe swallowed, looking into the space where the trooper’s eyes would be, if they weren’t wearing a helmet. “My name is-”

From across the hangar, the shout of voices was almost too unimportant for Poe to acknowledge. But the whizzing bolt of a blaster rushing past his head had Poe and the rest of the platoon flattened to the durasteel floor in the space of a half-breath.

A second platoon of troopers had taken up position by the door. Just as identical as those surrounding him - the differences blind to him but obvious to each other. And Poe could only watch on as these two different platoons engaged one another in battle of attrition. As equally equipped as they were homogeneous, they traded fire alongside the shouts of command, their urging for the other side to lay down their weapons - surrender to the other. Neither were going to surrender. And despite the word of the trooper, it occurred to Poe that this was the real proof that he needed. The proof that Armitage’s plan was working, because this was the mutiny he had hoped for.

No. Not hoped. Had planned. This was Armitage’s _plan_. A plan he had believed so acutely would work that he had risked not just his own life, but Poe’s, and Phasma’s, and the fate of the _Conqueror_ and the Order itself.

Pride and excitement and something so close to relief kept Poe there, collapsed atop the durasteel, smothering a laugh that wanted to spill manic. But a hand to his shoulder would not allow for it, and Poe could only scramble along with the medic as he was dragged to the wreckage of the transport, to take cover from the blaster fire that filled the space of the hangar. Another injured trooper collapsed against the smoking hull alongside him, leaking blood and the singed smell of burned flesh from a wound to his thigh. Poe watched on as the medic worked over the injury: injecting an analgesic before carefully removing the plates to apply a tourniquet.

“Didn’t hit an artery, you’ll be fine,” the medic assured, and Poe watched how gently they pat the trooper’s knee, the kind way they addressed their injury, how they knew just the right thing to say to alleviate their hidden, but surely felt panic.

Watched as the rest of the platoon took up positions around their fallen comrade, using the transport as a shield as they gave up ground in favor of protecting their own.

Suddenly, it was all Poe could do to help. He gripped the injured trooper’s other arm, as he helped the medic positioned them against the transport, sliding a piece of debris under their knee so their leg could be elevated and the blood flow slowed. And when the blaster bolts came closer, and their position converged together into a circle of protection, Poe took the blaster that was offered him. Offered _him_ , a stranger they chose to trust, in the face of this shared threat.

“RC-4401, alert Beta Five, they should only be a level up,” the head trooper calmly spoke between volleys, as the injured trooper at his side patched his comm into what Poe assumed was another friendly platoon. And as it happened: as the injured trooper called for help, as the platoon around him returned fire on the opposing force which would see them dead, Poe was struck with how familiar it all was. How many times he had been in this position, with the Resistance, with the New Republic’s navy, and even with his little band of spice runners? There was no difference between these people and the people Poe fought alongside, nothing besides the uniforms they wore and the command they answered to.

War had revealed a lot of things to Poe. And though this was hardly the most monumental of them, let alone something truly new, rather than one of the many thoughts he had ruminated upon during the accumulation of sleepless nights that had plagued him since the first time he took up a blaster against another living being, to see it so starkly represented left Poe reeling in a way he could not shake. These simplistic human gestures of protection and comfort and camaraderie knew no boundary, despite a person’s side or circumstance, or their goals, or even their flaws.

But most revealing of all was that Poe had seen what happened when those values in society broke down, what sort of result was born when community was abdicated in favor of power or wealth or territory, values he had thought the Order had placed above all else…he did not see that here. Where there should be that insidious thread of decay that would reveal these troopers as nothing more than cogs in a corrupt system, Poe found nothing but familiarity.

Finn’s words echoed. They’re just people. They’re all just _people_.

Was this what Armitage had seen? Was this the version of the Order he had envisioned? These men, who were loyal to a general who represented something to them Poe was not sure he could reliably put into their words - only his own - which felt disingenuous when things like hope and goodness were terms Armitage had only just recently allowed for himself. Because it didn’t feel like these troopers were only following orders, or acting on the idea that Captain Peavey was a usurper, rather than their rightful commander. No, because that would not explain why they helped some designation-less pilot, the concern they showed when they prioritized getting him to medical rather than securing the hangar, or the careful way the medic still watched over their injured comrade, as if a non-lethal wound to the leg required the same level of care as a blow to the chest. They were loyal to Armitage because he represented the values they held close, rather than Peavey, whose act of violence towards his own people surely must go against everything the Order stood for.

What the Order stood for.

The First Order were just people. People like any other. People who had come from the far reaches of the galaxy, not by choice, maybe, but still given up on by a galaxy who did not want them, taken in by a power that offered them _this:_ somewhere to belong, alongside people who could understand them. People with the same values Poe held, who could have been members of the Resistance if only they had been born a little closer to the core. And Poe already knew this, this should not feel so important - so pivotal - but it did. And all he wanted was to find Armitage and tell him, _I get it now, I understand_.

And then truth shattered him, reduced him to a trembling mess, when the sound of Armitage’s voice broached the scream of blaster fire, to fill the hangar bay not with the echo of his command, but with something far more remarkable. Because as Armitage’s words landed, as they weighed heavy on not just Poe, but the soldiers in the room, Poe understood the gravity of what was happening. The choice Armitage was making, and everything he was giving up to provide that same choice to these men and women of the First Order.

He could only watch in awe as the blasters hummed to a quiet throb, and the shifty sound of armor filled the burden of silence instead, to finally be replaced by the dull clatter of blasters dropped to the ground.

And he could only barely meet the shielded eyes of the head trooper, when their hand landed on his shoulder, and their head cocked to the side in question, as tears welled in Poe’s eyes and a half-smile cracked his face.

“My name is Poe Dameron,” he said, “and I really, _really_ need to speak with Armitage Hux.”

-

There were moments in Hux’s life when reality detached itself from his senses. Where despite his pain, or terror, or grief, he was left emptied, discarded to float through time at the whim of some greater force, an external circumstance his control could not extend to, and his future was remade into a vision that he would not have ever predicted.

These moments always had a way of converging upon him in a series of blows that felt as if the galaxy itself were trying remind him of his place: Jakku, when he watched the Empire fall as he was whisked away to the far reaches of the galaxy, leaving his childhood behind on the bloodied sands of a battlefield he should never have stepped foot on. And again, when Starkiller Base had crumbled beneath him, and his life’s work was dismantled before his eyes in a rupture of ice and fire that should have, by all rights, taken him with it. Later, when Kylo Ren would kill Snoke, Hux would again be caught, this time with his fingers curled over his blaster - frozen alongside the rest of himself - the moment lasting just long enough that his chance to take out Ren would pass along with his opportunity to craft a future for the First Order of his own design.

And most recently, when Poe had died. When Hux had been dragged back down into that pit inside him, lost to a grief he had never felt before - had never thought he could feel - not when the galaxy had already shown him what shapes grief could take. And while he had grown to expect these moments, he could not predict when they came, or what fundamental shift to the tides of his future they would make.

So as he leaned over the network technician’s shoulder, the whirring idle chatter of the medical droid attending Phasma felt distant, shrouded in fog, or submersed in some great ocean. And the image on the screen mocked him, because it revealed a version of reality that Hux did not feel a part of. Like this was just another cruel joke the galaxy had a way of making him the punchline to, where the blow would come the moment he let his guard down enough to believe what his own eyes saw, but his heart refused to accept.

“Can you identify that platoon?” asked in a voice that could not be his, for how steady it sounded. Hux did not feel steady. He felt un-moored in every way, already stretched thin by the events of the last several hours, so that what was left of him felt brittle, barely patched together.

“Yes, sir, that would be Delta Four,” the technician was already pulling up the platoon’s team profile, the array of identity cards revealing an elite squadron made up of soldiers from several different Star Destroyers, lead by a trooper designated as FR-6060. “Want me to patch you through?”

Hux swallowed, eyes lingering over the image on the screen, where Poe was huddled beside an injured trooper, only the dark curl of his hair and the occasional flash of his profile visible beyond the half circle of armored bodies. But it was _him_. It was Poe.

Poe was alive.

“Yes,” the word almost, _almost_ caught in the tightness of his throat. Hux would not cry. Not now. Not when he had nothing left to cry about.

Because Poe was _alive_.

“Delta Four leader, this is the bridge, what is your status?” The technician asked as Hux leaned in close, eyes following the shape of Poe beyond the cast of figures surrounding him, as if now that he had him in his sights he could not look away - maybe should not even blink - lest he slip away again.

“Delta Four to the bridge, confirmed. We’re in the main hangar, we’ve got one injured and have recovered a survivor here from the crash, a pilot from the _Conqueror.”_

And as he placed his hand on the technician’s shoulder, his other held out for the microphone the technician quickly removed from his ear, he did shake. But the technician said nothing, only glanced up at him with a curiosity Hux would not fault him - not when his question would reveal a concern he held for what should be a no-name pilot, “This is Hux. Delta Four, what is the pilot’s condition?” _Is he okay? Is he hurt? Is he another sith ghost come back to haunt me?_

“General Hux, sir, he requires medical attention for radiation exposure,” came over stilted enough that Hux could read something of their emotion through the modulator. Then, all at once, the voice cut out, to be replaced by another - a familiar voice, a voice that crashed over him, shaking free the emotion he had maybe only ever pretended he could hide.

“Armitage, you karking did it-”

On the screen, Poe had stood so he was in front of the trooper Hux now knew was the platoon leader. He leaned in close enough that the trooper’s blaster was pressed between their chests, gripping either side of the trooper’s helmet like it was Hux’s face in his hands. It took everything inside Hux to resist reaching out to the screen to layer the trembling tips of his fingers over the shadowy image of the man he loved, who yet _lived_.

“Poe Dameron,” he said, voice wavering only a little, as he absconded the hold he had on the technician’s shoulder to slide his hands behind his back. He twisted them together in a clasp that did nothing to hide his shaking, but felt like the only tether that would keep him standing, “you will unhand that trooper and report to medbay immediately. That is an order. If you defy me I will have that platoon throw you in the brig. Is that understood?”

And while maybe he could hide the shaking of his hands, there was no way he could hide the way his lips trembled when he pressed them together, or the relief softening the harsh syllables of his words. And even if Hux had been able to hide all those things, Poe was still gripping the trooper like it was Hux’s face in his hands, his grin visible despite the distance of the camera, maybe only because it poured through his voice.

“Which is closer to the bridge?”

“Excuse me?”

“The brig or medbay, which will get me closer to where you are?”

“Don’t be an idiot Poe,” Hux finally broke open, and through those fissures he breathed, “I’ll meet you at medbay.”

-

Medbay glowed with an antiseptic sting the medical facility on Ajan Kloss would never be able to achieve. But it was a testament to the First Order that even now, with an influx of injured and dying, that the floors were scrubbed clean of blood, the main lobby kept free of the wounded, and that there was still a private room left for Phasma, whose prep for a surgery was scheduled within the hour, just as soon as her vitals were confirmed stable.

“You lucky bastard,” she said not for the first time since they’d left the bridge in the capable hands of the newly appointed Captain Lorne. And that too, was a testament, but instead to the faith Hux had in the people of the Order: that he could trust his newly won command, no matter how superficial, to a stranger from a strange ship.

A strange ship which now was, by all rights, his. The mutiny had ended with his announcement, his _speech_ as he’d heard whispered amongst the crew they had encountered. There was a raw sort of awe to the expressions of the people he passed, a curiosity he was not sure existed before. It was entirely possible that the pall of command had blinded him to such things in the past. But something told him that this was as new to the people of the Order as it was to him - this leveling of the playing field - where everyone’s futures were as unknown and possessing the same potential as the person beside them, no matter what rank they held, or what role they played aboard the _Mandator_.

If his circumstances had been different, Hux thought he might have considered the greater implications of what that meant. Instead, all he could think of was Poe. Where he was, was he okay, when would he arrive, and how the stars had he survived?

Luck, it seemed, played a far larger role in all their lives than he was once willing to admit.

“As if you’re one to speak of good fortune,” he murmured softly, _fondly_ , despite Phasma’s sneer. Her armor lay discarded in a bin beside her gurney, the mangled piece of her chest plate blackened with dried blood where it had punctured between her ribs. Now, as she lay back - Hux almost wanted to say _lounged_ \- against the pillows the nurses had propped behind her back, fiddling with the drip that had been inserted into her wrist, Hux thought she might just be able to give Poe a run for his money when it came to all this luck stuff.

“Want to go check for him again?” Phasma’s voice seethed with an indulgent pleasure, as if Hux’s obvious inability to settle was something purely for her amusement.

“No, the nurses know to get me when he arrives,” he tried to convince himself. It still had not stopped him from checking with the lobby at least half a dozen times within the last thirty minutes. Nor had it stopped him from pacing the shortened length of the room.

“Armitage, calm down. He’s alright, he’s _alive._ ” And that this little bit of truth from Phasma came at no cost left Hux reeling with the expectation that he had only put off the inevitable price he was going to pay for all of this: for Phasma’s life, for this swift surrender of Peavey’s forces, and Poe’s apparent survival of a wreck that, by all rights, should have killed him.

“Calm is no longer an option for me,” he breathed out, pacing across the room in the same quickened step he had kept since their march from the bridge. And in his weakened state, he fell into old habits. The pacing, the anxiety, and the focus upon the tasks that needed completed - these real and tangible goals he could work towards in the face of what suddenly felt so insurmountable: his _feelings_. “There is work to be done, and-”

“-And a man who needs you, who _you_ need. Bellava can fill in, she’ll know what needs to get done. The hard part is over, you can worry about your own shit. She can run both ships for now. We’re not going anywhere, for a little while at least.” _We’re not going anywhere until we figure out if we’re even still welcome within the Core,_ a fact that went unspoken. That the promise he had made to these people still hinged upon a good will he wasn’t sure he had not also surrendered, alongside his position within the Order, and the claim he had over his own life.

Yes, there was still a price to be paid. One that had been easier than ever to accept aboard the bridge, when he’d believed Poe dead.

But Poe was not dead. Poe was alive - was on his way _here_.

A soft knock was the only warning he was given, before the door _whooshed_ open and Hux was confronted with not only his sudden good fortune, but the reversal of the greatest price he had ever been asked to pay.

There was no nurse to announce his presence. No ease of command to frame this encounter within a structure Hux could accommodate. There was only Poe, filling the threshold of the room, taking up a space that felt larger than the insubstantial mass his body had any right to still claim. But right then, Poe felt like both the largest and most important creature in the universe, like a god from the fables he knew as a child, or the burning sun of a falling meteor, coming to crash into Hux’s world and remake it into a brand new image.

“Heya, Hugs,” he said, like it was nothing. Like he wasn’t some ghost, some cruel joke the galaxy was playing. Like he was just Poe, his Poe, in all the ways Hux would never take for granted again, if he ever had at all.

He made a sound, aborted with emotion, nothing but a futile attempt at words, before he lost control of his body to the shock that had been chasing him since their crash. Finally, as Poe’s easy smile leveled on him a weight Hux could no longer carry, he felt himself succumb to the physical weariness he had buried in the face of his mission. Like atop that transport, when memory had crashed violent and reduced him to a heap of flesh, Hux collapsed again. But this time, as his knees buckled and his body did not just tremble, but shook, he did not meet the ground. He was caught in the arms of the man he loved, who he had lost, and now regained all over again.

“Hey hey,” Poe said while wrapping an arm around his waist and cupping his hand to his cheek. Poe’s eyes were dark and as sparked through with life as they had ever been. Because Poe was _alive_. “You okay?”

“Poe,” he could only whisper, as he held on - held fast - because he was never letting Poe go ever again.

“Yeah, you’re okay,” he murmured, he _smiled_ , his lips immediately brushing over his the corner of Hux’s down-turned lips. Shaking, Hux leaned into it. Canted his head to catch Poe in a touch of their mouths. It could not be called a kiss, particularly compared to those they were accustomed to, but here he could feel the life in Poe’s breath, taste his warmth, and that was enough. And if it were all Hux would be allowed for the rest of his days, it would feel far too generous. Hux would hold onto this, cherish it, in a way he wasn’t sure he would have been able to manage before. And even as his head swam and his vision tunneled, and he thought surely he should close his eyes before he caused himself to completely collapse, he could not relinquish the hold he had on Poe; whether that was his physical grip or just the sight of him alive and well and right there, with him again.

“You’re injured,” Poe observed, fingers brushing over the blood caked to the side of his forehead, as if it was him who had nearly died - _had_ died. It made Hux want to laugh, he _meant_ to laugh, he really did, but the sound broke more like a sob, and then the awful tears in his eyes gave him away.

He cried. He couldn’t stop now that he had begun. The little control he had left abandoned him in a rush of emotion: relief, but also joy, and the strangest sensation of gratitude. Because Poe was alive. However impossible it felt, and against all the odds, Poe was _okay._ Hux's sob broke wretched where he buried it in Poe's shoulder. And his hands trembled where they grasped at Poe's flight suit. And his mind flew off with the idea that no matter what happened next, he would never let go of this- of Poe. Never again.

Poe was alive- Poe was _alive_.

“That’s the third time he’s cried in the last two hours,” drawled Phasma from where she lay. “You should probably make him get his head checked out, for brain damage, you know.” And that did turn his sob into a snarl, a vicious thing he threw at Phasma, so different from the last time the two of them were together like this - positions reversed - but a shadow of the same moment, like an echo reaching through time.

Despite this display of emotion, one she had so adamantly rebuked aboard the bridge, Phasma seemed happy enough to return his snarl with a toothy half-grin. Hux hid his face in Poe’s neck. Pushing back the tears, he breathed in deeply as he felt Poe’s hand travel from his cheek to his hair. The way he stroked gentle fingers over the mat of blood felt like an audacious act of intimacy when performed in front of Phasma. But after all they had been through, no one seemed very bothered.

“Here, sit down, okay? Just take it easy,” Poe guided him to a chair in the corner, forcing him into the seat while he followed him down to his knees. They had been here before, long ago, under the sun of an unfamiliar planet, atop the sand of a beach that would come to represent so much to Hux, and the journey he had not expected to take alongside Poe Dameron. ”I’m here, you’re here, and we’re both okay.”

“Poe,” he said as his head tipped forward, “I’m not okay, I’m not at all okay.”

Poe only smiled as he pushed his way into Hux’s space, hands cupping his face like he was going to kiss him. He didn’t. He only wedged himself between Hux’s knees, shuffling close so their shared warmth closed the distance separating them, a coming together where their bodies could not. “Alright, that’s fair. We’re alive though, that’s what matters, right?”

“You were dead,” breathed out with another wave of vertigo. He let his head drop into Poe’s hold, let his face be cupped and his cheeks be stroked by Poe’s thumbs. Let his heart be heard, over the quiet whine of the medical equipment that somehow only enhanced the silence between their words. “You were dead, Poe. I don’t know how I went on, believing you were gone.”

“You did though,” Poe spoke softly, guiding Armitage with his voice like how he guided his face with his hands, holding it up so their eyes met, and then held. Hux couldn’t help himself when he lifted his hands to cover Poe’s - to hold them together, fingers tangled, gripped so tightly Hux thought they would never be able to let go. “You did it because you’re strong, and you knew what needed to be done. You saved everyone, Armitage. You saved your people. You saved the First Order.”

How Poe could speak with a smile right then, Hux may never understand. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to. Maybe that was why he and Poe fit together as they did: filling in each other’s gaps, propping each other up so they stayed aloft when alone the other might fall.

“I’m so proud of you, Armitage.”

And that, in the end, was what finally made Hux look away: the idea that Poe was proud of him, of this heroic version of himself that Hux nearly tore apart in his desire to avenge Poe. There was a guilt hidden there, within that break of attention - a fear of the mantle he had come so close to donning, and the person he had thought he no longer was, but almost chose to become.

“I was going to do it,” he said softly, like a secret.

“What, do what?”

“Leave,” Hux admitted, eyes lifting to catch Poe’s again, like a dare, a bold thing he threw at Poe’s feet, a truth that felt as much an accusation as it had a premonition, “with the First Order.”

Poe was quiet, mouth parted with his breath, a gentle pulse that swelled his chest in slow arching waves. But there was no disappointment in his stare, nor surprise. Just a question, one he was particularly careful to ask, “What stopped you?”

“My heart.” The words released with his breath - with his grimace. It was a confession, and a burden, but one that felt lifted.

“Now I’m _really_ proud of you,” Poe said, then added, softly, so maybe only he could hear, “I love you so much, Armitage Hux.”

Only then did Hux close his eyes and allow Poe the kiss he had been seeking.

It landed gently on his lips, like the press of fingertips to a flower’s petal, mindful of something that felt as delicate as it did precious. It left Hux shaking. The grip he still held to Poe’s hands a stability he literally clung to as the rest of himself unraveled - as untrusting of this turn in his fortune as he had always been of fate’s looming toll. Heedless of his worry, Poe pressed slow, soft kisses across Armitage’s mouth, until he was left shaking with more than the fester of fear in his gut.

As monumental as Poe’s survival felt, Hux understood they were not safe - not yet. But Poe _was_ alive. And he was here, with him, now. Armitage may not have skirted paying fate’s price entirely, but maybe he’d been offered a temporary respite.

The shifting of blankets and the beep of the medical pager was what finally broke the moment. And as he and Poe pulled away to stare at one another - Poe’s grin far outshining whatever broken expression Hux’s face surely must have donned - Phasma announced loudly, “Don’t worry, I’m getting you two a room.”

-

In the end, it wasn’t Phasma who procured them a room, but Captain Lorne.

Armitage assured him that the quarters they’d been assigned were modest. But Poe supposed a general of the First Order possessed a different definition of the word modest than that held by a rapscallion rebel pilot who’s own promotion to general had only come with increased responsibilities and not an upgrade to his sleeping arrangements. That was to say, their quarters aboard the _Mandator_ were large. They were clean. And most of all, they were private.

They were also beautiful.

Space sprawled in a blackened expanse across the floor to ceiling viewport that was the far wall. Their rooms looked out over the port side, so the hull of the _Conqueror_ was hidden, suggesting an unbroken stretch of deep space that felt as isolating as the sound-proofing that protected them from both passing foot traffic and the adjacent quarters. As charming as their little collection of cubby-like rooms were back on Ajan Kloss, the _Mandator_ offered a level of refinement that made Poe wonder how the hell Hux had never once complained about their Resistance base home.

“And you’re telling me, your quarters aboard the _Finalizer_ were even nicer?”

“They were certainly larger, I would not have called them nicer,” Armitage said as he pulled a hand down his face, eyes drifting to the discarded report Parnadee had sent over; the collection of transfers that had been selected to board the _Mandator_. Armitage had just given the final approval, after working out the priority boarding and how much crude fuel could be spared for the transports. They couldn’t get all one hundred and eighty thousand of the over-populated _Conqueror_ aboard the _Mandator_ \- both their capacity and resources would not allow that - but they could get some. Enough, certainly, to make a difference.

At the top of the priority list were the few children and their extended families, a fact that had first left Poe reeling, and then asking if that was common aboard a Star Destroyer. The confused twist to Armitage’s mouth had been answer enough. So much that when Poe smiled sheepishly during Armitage’s attempt to explain a family unit and how small children depended upon their parents during their critical infantile years, Poe had taken the opportunity to shut him up with a kiss.

“I know what a family is, Hugs,” he had said into the soft press of his mouth, leaving out the _probably better than you do_ , and opting instead for, “think if we tried hard enough we could start one?”

Before Armitage could go off on another tangent, this time about male anatomy and how neither of them were equipped with the appropriate biological parts to incubate a child (Poe stopped wondering when his internal Armitage voice had become so accurate), Poe had pulled the datapad from his hands and deposited himself in its place atop the desk. Armitage had not protested. He had hardly done anything more than look up at Poe with that same unreadable expression he had worn since his breakdown in medbay.

Now, space framed Armitage from where he sat in the swivel chair, inky and dark against all his pale fire, despite the shadows that hung beneath his eyes. Poe knew he was barely holding it all together. Exhaustion and stress were catching up now that his adrenaline had run dry. He looked _tired_ \- worn in a way Poe had never seen before. And he supposed that had something to do with recent events, but also that his guard was down. Poe had watched it fall almost immediately when the hydraulic door had sealed them away from the eyes of the _Mandator’s_ crew; General Hux absconded in favor of the man Poe had grown to know simply as Armitage.

But regardless of the lack of walls, and the discarded datapad, Poe recognized the turning machinery that made up Armitage’s mind. Even now it worked overtime. Poe observed it all from his perch on the desk: the way Armitage sunk back into his slightly disadvantageous position in the chair, mouth pulled to a frown, eyes following a path Poe could only guess at - but had an inkling of - when his attention lingered over the patch on his forearm. Armitage could not stop thinking, and he most certainly could not stop _worrying_.

“I’m okay, Hugs,” Poe said like it would make a difference. Because it was true, he _was_ okay - or at least would be. At the opposite side of the desk sat a large case. Inside it was a hypo, along with three days worth of injections for two and a medpak. The doctor had insisted, when he’d explained anyone within close proximity to Poe for an extended time needed to take similar precautions. He was, funnily enough, hot as ion engine. And he was in for a miserable couple weeks at the absolute worst possible timing, but it would not kill him.

“I’ll be alright, even the doctor said so,” he continued in the face of Armitage’s silence. But Armitage only looked away, lips pursed against words he didn’t speak, gloved hands clenched over the arm rests of his chair. Armitage’s anxiety was plain, and all Poe wanted was to chase it away, reveal the man he knew was buried beneath it all. The man who had clung to his back on a wild speeder ride across Ajan Kloss’s countryside. Who had climbed a mountain beside him to watch sea creatures play beneath the waves. The very person who had designed a game sim to spite a world of men who would smother him in their archaic tenets, only to have it become the vehicle of salvation for the whole of the Order.

This was a victory, and Poe wanted Armitage to enjoy it — not rot away _worrying_.

“Stop worrying,” murmured as he reached out to Armitage. Eyes drifting closed, mouth parting, head tilting into Poe’s meandering touch as he brushed the backs of his fingers over his cheekbone, Poe watched Armitage finally break open.

“I can’t help it,” he breathed. And it was like he hadn’t meant to say as much, his mouth closing over his _worry_ , even as Poe’s fingers carded through his hair. A little bit of bacta clung to his fingertips when they brushed past his wound, but that did not stop Poe. Because this gentle touch was dragging Armitage out from his brooding, and that was all Poe cared about right then. He considered it all a success when Armitage continued speaking. “I’m worried for you, and if our return to the New Republic will interfere with your treatment.”

“We’ve got hospitals too, Armitage,” Poe teased with the best grin he could manage. “We even have families who live together.”

And that did it. Like the sun breaking through the cloud cover, Poe watched _Armitage_ emerge. His sneer was smothered by an ever so small smile, as his face turned to the side to brush his lips over Poe’s fingers. It was the sweetest suggestion of a kiss, and Poe ached when it just as quickly vanished. It was all Poe could do to keep from sliding off the desk into Armitage’s lap and kissing him open again. Nothing was stopping him, except the thread of hesitation that connected this moment to the last. There was something important on Armitage’s mind, something that if left unsaid, was sure to fester.

“Tell me,” Poe murmured, fingers trailing past Armitage’s cheek to his chin. He didn’t so much as tilt Armitage’s face up as he encouraged it. “What are you thinking about?”

“Too much,” said as Armitage chased the touch of his fingers. Poe saw how his hands slid from the armrests to fold in his lap, resisting an urge, likely one to touch Poe. “You died, Poe. And I thought everything that mattered inside me died with you.” Armitage spoke softly into the palm that now cupped his cheek.

“I didn’t die, though,” Poe reassured not for the first, or even second or third since their reunion in medbay. “And all that stuff inside you didn’t either. You’re a hero, Armitage, to all these people. You saved everyone.” And then he went and offered them a path towards opportunity, something arguably more valuable, more precious, to a people who had never known choice. Poe had seen it there in the hangar, and again in the passing faces of the _Mandator's_ crew. Armitage wasn't just a hero to these people, he was something closer to a savior.

But, when Armitage met and held his eyes, and he said, “Everyone except you.” Poe realized, finally, exactly what was on Armitage’s mind.

Silenced befell them, bloating heavy, and there was nothing Poe could do to stop it, despite how sad it made him feel. Armitage thought he had failed him. Because Armitage had been able to save everyone, except the one person he must have wanted to save the most. Poe wanted to tell him, _It's not your fault_ , but instead he stroked Armitage's cheek with his thumb, encouraged by the simple fact that he had not pulled away.

“How did you survive, Poe?” And there it was, the very end of this thread, the thing that Armitage had been hesitating to ask, as if he already knew the answer, and what parts of his world would require shifting to accommodate it.

“It was Rey…and Ren,” Poe said as kindly as he could manage, hoping to pull the punch of Kylo Ren’s involvement. He couldn’t, but that would not stop him from trying. And when he explained how it happened, how he had been knocked unconscious by the explosion while pulling the evac lever, only to awaken to Rey reaching him through the Force, but that it had been Ren who had entered his mind and _moved him_ through space itself in order to reach the hangar bay, Armitage’s face twitched closed.

Poe hadn’t the time to read the expression, but he imagined it could have been anger as much as defeat.

Beneath Poe’s touch Armitage’s eyes pled as he said, “I left you out there, Poe. I didn’t even think to look for you-” and Poe cut him off with his thumb to his lips.

“Stop.” The command was there, gently buried with the press of his thumb. He could feel Armitage’s quickened pulse against the press, the flutter thin quality of his breath as it spilled past his thumb. But it was his eyes that gave him away: glassy and wet, Armitage looked up at Poe with a wild edge of desperation.

With _guilt_. Armitage felt _guilty_.

“You could not have gone back for me even if you’d known. That cannon would have torn apart anything you could have piloted, and then we would both be dead. You did not fail me, Armitage.”

Expression once again a calculated mask of control despite how the whites of his eyes ringed his blown pupils, Armitage looked away. He appeared shaken, and Poe understood why. They had come so close to loosing one another, and whatever balm this moment of peace might bring them, Poe knew just as well as Armitage how the stakes in their lives had changed.

And though it might be the first time, it certainly wasn’t going to be the last time they would face death together.

When Armitage’s lips opened under his thumb, Poe moved it to the corner of his mouth so he could speak. “Kylo Ren saved your life,” he said simply, and Poe didn’t need to meet his eyes to know what he was thinking, this time. Because Poe would be lying if the same thoughts hadn’t already crossed his mind.

“Yeah, I guess he did.”

Armitage’s mouth fell open, closed just as quickly, before he finally said, “I am indebted to Ren, for many things he’s done today.”

“I dunno,” Poe smiled, abandoning Armitage’s cheek for his jaw, stroking with a little _come hither_ motion that had Armitage leaning forward. “Maybe he’s just making up for the past. He actually told me he was sorry.”

That, at least, inspired a scoff - and that was so much better than this festering _worry_.

“For being a shit, I think. We didn’t really have a discussion, but he must have seen the thoughts having him in my head dredged up, about my interrogation, and his treatment of you.”

“I won’t hold my breath that Ren is sorry regarding anything in our past.” And then, carefully “It didn’t hurt, having him in your head?”

“No, Ren didn’t hurt me,” said as Armitage turned his face into his hand, seeking, until his lips found the open cup of Poe’s palm where his breath pooled. Poe held him like that, rooted to his place on his desk, his hand their only physical connection, but one that Armitage sought, like he thought to ask for anything more might break what they already had. That this would be taken away from him - _Poe_ would be taken from him - all over again. “I’m okay, Armitage. I’m not going anywhere.”

The breath Armitage exhaled shuddered alongside his body, and then he was standing, moving between Poe’s legs to lean against the desk and into his space. Gloved hands bracketed his hips, as Armitage hung his head down between them, face still tilted into the cup of Poe’s palm, eyes roving Poe’s like the truth would not be found in Poe’s words but his soul. He stayed there, breathing into their tenuous separation, waiting for something Poe couldn’t predict. Whatever worries were consuming Armitage were certainly far too numerous to name, let alone address all then. But they had time, now - room to breathe. There were no senators asking questions, no droids following them around, no countdown to reach the people of the Order before death claimed them first. Despite the work that needed to be done - and there was a _lot_ \- this was the most calm Poe had felt in weeks.

Maybe coming close to death did that to a person. Maybe now he understood how precious this all was, now that both of them had come so close to loosing it.

“Come here,” he murmured, as he pet his free hand down Armitage’s side. The belt at his waist was cool to the touch, but where his jacket pressed into his body Poe could feel how warm Armitage was beneath it. Poe wanted to touch him, undo his seams and seek out the velvet of his skin. He had grown used to the soft drape of Armitage’s green button down and the easy access it provided to the body his uniform seemed committed to hiding. So to have him back in the stiff gabberwool, despite the alluring shapes it made of his figure, felt like something Poe needed to rectify; a disguise that needed purging, now that it had outworn its usefulness.

Or maybe he could put it to a different kind of use.

“You’re exhausted,” Poe murmured, fingers trailing down Armitage’s cheek, back under his chin. He directed his face up, so the spill of his breath fell over Poe’s mouth, rather than into his hand.

“You will be too, when those stims wear off,” collected warm and buoyant into the scant distance separating them.

“Yeah, so lets rest for a little bit. The transfers will take a few hours anyway. How about we test out that bed?” Poe said the words over Armitage’s lips, the height of the desk placing Armitage at only a slight advantage. When Armitage leaned into the almost kiss without closing the distance, Poe nuzzled into him instead; let his lips brush up his chin to follow the path his nose traced. And his hand dropped to Armitage’s collar, to play over the clasp that lay hidden there. All an offer, an opportunity for Armitage to take, but still that hesitation lingered, just there, toiling beneath the surface Poe was so desperate to reveal.

But Poe recognized these defenses. Knew them not as reluctance, but apprehension. Armitage wasn’t going to make the first move, because he was worried about _Poe_. And he thought, maybe, he knew how to bolster him back into the confidence he had so swiftly left behind in the halls of the _Mandator_.

“As much as I like seeing you in this uniform, I’d much rather get you out of it.”

Quietly, Armitage regarded him, silence stretching fragile as his mind turned over the idea, before he responded with, “What’s stopping you?” and it may as well have been a ‘ _yes, please’_ , with how he breathed it out.

“Well,” Poe mused, carefully feeling out what he said next, unsure if Armitage was as on board with the idea as he was. After all, medical had taken his contaminated flight suit, so that now all he wore were the simple training fatigues that were near identical to those that had been stashed away in Armitage’s chest. But he remembered that _look_ from the hangar, when Armitage had come upon Phasma strapping him into his suit. “I don’t want to go against direct orders or anything.”

It was curious, how easily he could now read Armitage - the subtle micro-shifts of his face exposing more than his words may ever admit. The dilation to his eyes was obvious, but it was the flickering pull of his lashes up as their eyes met, and the twitch to his mouth that truly gave him away.

So when Armitage murmured, “Did I give you an order?” Poe couldn’t help the grin that cracked his face wide open.

And all it took was for Poe to lean in close enough to breathe out, “Not yet, sir,” for Armitage to finally kiss him.

Despite the playful suggestion, the kiss was slow to start, slower yet to deepen. Armitage kissed him with a careful deliberateness - like he was committed to treating Poe as if he were something that might break. Or maybe that was just Poe projecting, because when Armitage’s palms found his waist and his fingers curled tightly around his sides, his grip trembled, and his breath hitched. Possessive - that’s what this felt like. Like Armitage was afraid Poe might slip away - might _disappear_.

But Poe wasn’t going anywhere.

“How do you want me?” He asked into the kiss as his thumb made a flicking motion. The clasps to Armitage’s collar came easily undone, exposing his throat, and with it, his pulse. Poe’s fingers skirted the fluttering pound of it - a betrayal of Armitage’s anatomy that even his officer’s uptight facade could not hide. Trailing down to dip into the cusp of his clavicle, Poe stroked at the skin he so desperate sought. It was as soft as he knew it to be; familiar, now. Poe smothered that sense of wonder, and pulled away to murmur, “On the desk, maybe? Or over it?”

“Are you suggesting-” Armitage bit off, quite literally, his teeth catching his bottom lip as Poe’s free hand suddenly found his half-erect cock. Poe let his lips rest just at the corner of Armitage’s mouth, while his hand traced the shape of him through his jodhpurs. Yes, Poe wanted Armitage to fuck him - if _he_ wanted. Poe _really_ hoped he wanted.

“Would you like to fuck me, sir?” Whispered softly, like this was some forbidden fantasy he was allowing Armitage to play out. Who knew, it might be. This wasn’t something they had tried before - not this playful game of roles nor Armitage taking the more assertive position during sex. But for fucks sake, the man was the general of the First Order, if he didn’t get off at least a little bit on power then Poe had a lot more than his opinion of the First Order to reevaluate.

“Yes,” Armitage breathed. And then, “Over the desk.” While it might have only been the answer to his question, it came out like a command, and Poe was suddenly, undeniably hard.

“Leave this on?” Poe requested as his fingers trailed down Armitage’s uniform to unclip the belt from his waist. Armitage only nodded, eyes following the path of Poe’s fingers as he slowly drew down the hidden zipper of his jacket, far enough to reveal a wedge of his upper chest. Beneath where his mother’s ring hung, Armitage’s skin was already flushed an evocative pink that matched the color painting his cheeks and the tips of his ears. With an anatomy like Armitage’s, there was no hiding the tells of pleasure Poe’s own warmer skin could sometimes hide. Right now, however, Poe didn’t want to hide a thing from Armitage. He wanted to give him anything he wanted. Poe wanted to give him _everything_.

By the way Armitage hovered over him, eyes drifting to his lap, mouth slightly parted and fingers twitching beside his hips, Poe thought he had an idea of what that might be.

“This what you want, sir?” Poe asked as he gripped himself through his fatigues. The shape of him was obvious where it rested over the curve of his thigh. And where the tip rubbed against the dark fabric, a wet spot was already forming. Just the idea of Armitage being inside him had Poe leaking already. “Will you touch me?” He encouraged the idea by pushing his hips up into his own hand, pressing his palm down over his cock and loosing a soft moan.

But Armitage didn’t need any encouragement. His hand lifted from the desk to lay over top Poe’s, thumb finding the wet spot and rubbing into it with a motion that was as much a ‘ _yes’_ as the words he didn’t speak. Poe sucked in a breath, hips rolling up again, this time into the shared pressure of two hands. Armitage’s thumb relentlessly circled his tip, and Poe could feel the slick way his precome smoothed the movement through the now saturated fabric. _Fuck_ he was hard.

“You’re so wet,” Armitage mused almost darkly, and Poe was suddenly caught in the idea that he had unleashed something dangerous in Armitage, something he wasn’t going to be able to put back in its place - that he maybe didn’t want to.

He quickly popped the button on his fatigues, shimmied them down his hips while Armitage helped tug them free, until it was just his erection and his thighs exposed. Armitage’s gloved fingers traced his skin in long tenuous brushes, avoiding where Poe wanted to be touched the most. Teasing - Armitage was _teasing_ him - and that more than anything had Poe loosing his breath. Lifting his eyes, he caught how Armitage’s were locked onto his erection. There was no expression to read on his face, no rush to his movements. Instead, he took his time, finding Poe slowly, his testicles and his cock and the tip of him where it shone slick in the cool ambient light of the room.

The gloves dragged with an unusual friction, soft but unfamiliar, and it had Poe asking, “Gonna take those off, sir?” Or was Armitage going to get him off with his gloves on? Poe was not adverse to the idea - not adverse at all, in fact.

“No,” Armitage replied simply, fingers pinching the tip of Poe’s erection, collecting the leaking precome with Poe’s foreskin and then using it to slide down his length, never once getting a spec on his glove. Poe was gasping before Armitage even commanded, “I want you to touch yourself for me, Dameron.”

“Holy shit,” Poe broke character, he couldn’t help it. Which only caused Armitage to break as well, but by meeting his eyes as he dipped his head.

“Is that too much?” He asked softly, _tentatively_ , and the dichotomy of the two - that assertive, coolly in control general and this careful observant man had Poe kissing Armitage like he needed him to breathe. How could both those people exist in one person? General Hux and Armitage, two halves of a whole and Poe could only think of what had to have happened in Armitage’s life to create such a compelling juxtaposition of character. And he’d known - of course he had known, he’d seen both often enough - but something about encountering General Hux in the bedroom had him a little overwhelmed.

“You’re a chameleon,” Poe breathed into the kiss, his grin wide.

Armitage pulled away, eyebrows drawn just slightly together, as he asked, “I thought that’s what you wanted?” And it struck Poe how convoluted that sounded, because Poe wanted _Armitage_ , “Do you get off on the idea of me as your superior?”

“I get off on _you_.” Poe closed the distance, first with his fingers in his hair, and then his mouth. “All of you, every last bit of you,” he said over Armitage’s lips before pressing into him a slow, gentle kiss.

Armitage moaned, a little broken, a little hesitant. As if that alone was enough to bring him to the edge: the unending breadth of Poe’s ability to love him. And it was true. It was all _true_. But when Armitage breathed over Poe’s mouth, “Do you still want me to fuck you?” it was with a heat that made his earlier command as General Hux feel like nothing but a performance.

“Fuck, yeah I do,” Poe grinned as he bit Armitage’s bottom lip, firing the kiss into an inferno as his hands found their way to Armitage’s pants. He freed his erection quickly, pushing the little black briefs down his hips just far enough to get his fist around his cock. It was hot, and it was heavy, and it was turning a ruddy pink color that peaked red where his foreskin drew back. There were many things Poe wanted in that moment, but he wasn’t going to last long enough to have them all, so he choose, “Do we have lube?”

“The medpak,” Armitage indicated and Poe stretched around to grab the case. Inside he found several sealed packages of lubricant, all of which he took before replacing the case. But when he turned back to Armitage, he was captured by the image he painted: his torso a long line of pale skin, reaching down to a shimmer of red-gold hair where his unbuttoned jacket allowed his cock to curve alluringly against the edge of the desk. A single drop of precome beaded the tip, and Poe had to resist leaning down to scoop it up with his tongue.

Instead he tore open a package of lube, coating his fingers so that when he did finally reach out to touch Armitage, his hand moved down his erection in a smooth slide. Armitage’s shudder would have been reward enough, but then he went and rolled his hips into Poe’s hand, mouth falling open over a long drag of an ‘ _ah’_ like moan that was more air than sound. Poe felt spoiled by the sound. Chased it with his touch and drew out another longer, louder moan. He was still learning all the things that took Armitage apart the best, and these confident strokes to his cock were one of them. For a man who had hardly been touched in his whole life, he sure liked it when Poe did the touching.

Hands back to their place beside Poe’s hips, torso hunched forward so their foreheads tipped together, Armitage rocked into his hand. Every little thrust Poe met with a slide of his thumb over the tip, and the firm pressure of his curled fingers, encouraging Armitage until he was panting hot breath against Poe’s lips. He kept leaning into Poe like he was going to kiss him, only to brush their lips in some mindless search for connection. Poe might have mistaken it for teasing, but the broken rhythm of Armitage’s hips and the way his arms shook gave him away. He was quickly coming undone by Poe’s attention, each layer of his carefully constructed facade peeling away in the face of Poe’s touch. Gone were both the stricken man from the medbay and the general he had been forced to once again become, revealing _Armitage_ beneath it all - a person maybe only Poe had ever known. Because while everyone else in the galaxy thought they knew exactly who Armitage Hux was, only he had ever gotten to see _this_ man.

Poe suddenly felt a little guilty that he had ever asked him to be anything else.

“I love you so much, Armitage,” Poe said as he slipped his hand to the back of Armitage’s neck and closed the distance with a kiss. Armitage trembled against him, hips jerking into Poe’s first. And when Armitage’s mouth fell open with a small sound, maybe something that was meant to be words but came out breathless and aching, Poe took the chance to push in with his tongue. He held Armitage to the kiss, tongue curling past his teeth and while his hand stilled so his thumb could massage around the head of his cock. The next sound Armitage made was pleading, a little wrecked, coiling so deep into Poe’s gut he had to answer it with his own moan.

Yes, he wanted Armitage to fuck him, and then he wanted to get him on his knees and return the favor.

“ _Ah_ -” Armitage broke the kiss with a gasp, “ _Poe_ -” moaned when Poe’s thumb pressed hard into the sensitive ridge beneath his slit. Armitage’s whole body was shaking, the leather gloves making a sort of dull squeak where his hands grappled at the shiny surface of the desk, barely able to hold his weight aloft. Poe would have been happy to watch him come like this, half undone of his uniform, cum coating his fancy First Order desk as some rogue pilot took what he wanted from his uptight straight-laced general. Instead, he nipped Armitage’s lip with one last roll of his fist, and then he slid off the desk to turn around and bend over it.

Armitage made a sound, long and drawn - a whine that collected in Poe’s cock.

“So you want to watch me touch myself, huh?” Poe teased over his shoulder as he grabbed another package of lubricant. This one tore open faster than the first, and Poe wasted no time coating his fingers enough to get two inside himself. The _moan_ Armitage released as he watched Poe’s fingers breach his anus made it seem like he wouldn’t last - not long enough for Poe to properly prepare himself, let alone for Armitage to fuck him.

“Don’t come yet,” Poe may as well have purred, “wait until you’re inside me.”

“Fuck,” whispered broken. Poe could see over his shoulder how Armitage’s eyes were leveraged on the movement of his hand, mouth open, tongue darting out to wet his lips, entirely focused on the slow slide of Poe’s fingers in and out - and that more than anything had Poe’s blood flooding his erection. It gave a twitch, a dribble of precome leaking out to slicken the surface of the desk where it was trapped. Poe rocked his hips into it, which in turn made him take his fingers deeper, and Poe could not stop his own broken moan.

Armitage made a sharp sound, like air through his teeth, before he was begging, “Poe, may I-” the question hanging there, as Armitage’s palm tentatively brushed the swell of his ass. He’d taken his gloves off, and now his bare hand skirted where Poe’s fingers were buried. The sensation sparked across his sensitized skin, and Poe pushed into Armitage’s touch, the unfinished question prompting him to respond.

“Go on,” he encouraged, shuffling his legs as wide as he could what with his fatigues bunched around his knees. He needed another finger anyways, why not have it be Armitage’s?

The press of Armitage’s palm receded to be replaced with his fingertip, “Do you mean?”

“Yeah, here-” Poe slid his fingers free, caught Armitage’s hand in his instead to thread their fingers together. Their eyes met and held, Armitage’s wide with something wild that could be mistaken as fear, but Poe knew to be excitement, as he pressed their fingers inside himself. The lube from before was enough that his two and Armitage’s third slid in easily, stretching him open in a way he could not have ever achieved on his own. It felt like his body was making space for more than just their fingers; preparing him for something far more significant than Armitage’s cock. Strangely enough, it wasn’t the first time that day his world had shifted to accommodate something new, and Poe moaned with the feeling, body throbbing with a desire that had always been there, but now felt markedly different - in a way Poe could not reliably put to words.

Suddenly, it all felt like so much. Dropping his head to the desk, he breathed in deeply, steadying himself against the shared sensation of their joined fingers, and the heavy fall of Armitage’s breathing. For a long moment, it was only these small intimate sounds that filled the room, and Poe found a comfort their familiar cadence cast to these unfamiliar walls. But then he felt the brush of Armitage’s lips over his spine, and then Poe’s moan was too loud for him to hear anything else.

Stars, he _wanted_ him.

Poe found his own prostate quickly, pressing into it hard as Armitage’s own finger continued its slow slide. It felt good- no, it felt _incredible_. Before, just the idea of it was enough, but the reality left him straining against their combined touch, taking Armitage’s finger deeper while his own worked himself to his edge. His eyelids fluttered closed, and his mouth parted with his shallow breathing, gasping as his hips tilted up to get a better angle. Forgetting his prostate as he slid his fingers in alongside Armitage’s, clenching down hard when both their hands pushed in _deep_.

“ _Fuck_ , Armitage-”

“If I’m a chameleon, you’re a minx,” Armitage rasped, and it was as if all the blood that had collected in his cock moved to his heart, as Armitage _smiled_ at him, wrist twisting so he could curl his finger down alongside Poe’s. Poe couldn’t stop himself from moaning. “Will you come from this?”

“I could, but, not this time,” said with a rush. “I want you. Now, I’m good. I’m- _fuck-_ I’m not going to last long at all.”

He was going to come right then, because Armitage had leaned over his back to brush his cock against their hands and his lips against his ear, murmuring, “Don’t come yet,” and then, a little slower, like he were testing him out, feeling his way through Poe with his words just as he did the length of his finger, Armitage _breathed_ , “wait until I’m inside you.”

Holy _fuck_ -

“I’ve created a monster,” Poe laughed breathlessly. Yeah, whatever he’d unleashed in Armitage might just be the end of him, and Poe found he really couldn’t care. In fact, he encouraged it, breaking off into a whine as Armitage moaned softly into his ear while pushing their hips together. Armitage’s erection throbbed hot, lube and precome slicking its way as he pressed his hips into where their fingers were buried together inside Poe. “Oh- _stars_ \- fuck me, now-”

“Yes-” Armitage pulled back, just enough to slide his finger free and replace it with the tip of his cock. Poe pulled his own fingers out, twisting his wrist to clutch at Armitage’s erection, squeezing it tightly as he gave it one hard stroke. And when Armitage choked out, “ _Poe_ -” while hips cock twitched a copious amount of precome into Poe’s hand, Poe rolled his hips so his anus dragged over the tip in a slow grind. Armitage gasped, and then whispered with a rush, “I-l’ll come _-_ ”

“Inside, now,” Poe groaned, and then Armitage was gripping his hips and pushing forward - pushing _in._ Poe chewed his lip while he held Armitage steady, guiding him inside, as Armitage’s hips stuttered into his fist, the tip of his erection breaching Poe to stretch him open around the flare of his head. It felt good- it felt _great -_ but it was the whimper that Armitage buried into his hair that had Poe gasping, “ _Fuck_ , that’s it. Stars Armitage, I want you.”

“ _Poe_ ,” Armitage whispered, voice absolutely _shaking_.

“You feel so good,” Poe pulled his hand away while pushing his hips back, taking Armitage deeper, taking him _completely_. Poe gasped again as Armitage cried out softly when he bottomed out, the girth of him stretching Poe wide, while his head rubbed over and past his prostate. They held still like that, shaking against one another - Armitage hunched over Poe’s back, fingers clawed into his hips, breathing out those little catching sounds Poe had become so familiar with - addicted to - so much that his cock twitched at the sound of them spilling alongside Armitage’s breath. And when Armitage pushed in with a little involuntary grind, his cock rubbed directly into his prostate, and Poe’s anus clenched at his cock. He was leaking all over the desk, likely all over his fatigues, and he just could not bring himself to care. _“Armitage_ ,” he moaned, he _begged_.

“Poe, I’m-” Armitage’s hips twitched, going a fraction deeper, before they drew back just enough to thrust shallowly inside. “Tell me if I-” broke into a whimper, as Poe pushed back into his next thrust. The slide was good, the stretch was better, but Poe didn’t want Armitage to hold back. He wanted him to loose control, to abscond the worry he seemed so determined to hold onto. Looking over his shoulder, Poe caught Armitage’s eyes. Desperate, they stared at Poe, searching for something Poe at first thought was concern, but then realized was assurance - the need to know Poe would not break under his attention, or from it. An unfounded fear that he would hurt Poe, or worse yet, fail him.

“Fuck, Armitage, I’m okay,” said as he strained back. Pushing up on one arm, Poe twisted round to get a hand to Armitage’s neck and his lips to his mouth. “You feel incredible." he said into the press of their lips as he rolled his hips, holding Armitage to _this_ \- not just their kiss but this joining, and the commitment they had made to one another, and all the strings he would happily attach to it. And when Armitage’s inhale shuddered and his eyes closed and his cheeks flushed, both with pleasure and surprise and something else that was buried too deeply for even Poe to identify, he said, “I need you so much, I need _you_ Armitage.”

“I need you too,” Armitage admitted, and then whispered, like a secret, “I love you desperately, Poe,” as he pushed his hips forward. Poe moaned, smile there but breaking alongside the rest of his control as he pressed back into Armitage’s next thrust, and then into their kiss. He opened his mouth to Armitage’s tongue as his hips drove directly into his prostate. The sensation left Poe moaning against Armitage’s whine, their mouths sliding messily as they swallowed the sounds each could not help but make.

“Armitage-” Poe gasped into their kiss, when Armitage did it all over again. Except this time, he pulled back on Poe’s hips as he rocked forward, so Poe’s cock dragged over the desk, catching his tip along the smooth surface in a delicious slide that left it twitching. And that was it, that was what Poe needed. “ _Yeah,_ just like that-” Poe gasped out, legs straining as he took the next thrust. Armitage’s inexperience manifested in a broken but earnest voracity, but it was the very nature of this desperate need that had Poe’s anus clenching at Armitage’s cock as his own leaked all over the desk, while Armitage chased his pleasure with Poe’s body.

And it was the grasping clutch to his hips that was sending Poe quickly towards orgasm. Armitage’s fingers dug furrows into the cusp of his pelvis as he held fast, possessively pulling Poe to him like he was all he had, all he needed, bringing them together over and over until Armitage had a rhythm - a mindless rutting that left him panting into Poe’s open mouth, all those little sounds spilling free with the last of his tenuous control. Armitage was coming undone and he was taking Poe along with him. “Oh, stars, _Armitage_ -”

“Poe- _Poe_ -” whimpered with another broken thrust, a deep thing that ground in hard enough that Poe’s toes nearly lifted from the ground, his body pressed so far forward into the desk that his erection became trapped between the soft skin of his belly and the smooth slide of the surface. “Poe, I’m coming, I can’t stop-” Armitage’s voice shook alongside his body as his lips dragged at Poe’s, hips locked in that forward thrust as his hands grappled at Poe’s hips.

“Don’t stop, come inside me, fuck Armitage, do it-” Poe gasped against Armitage’s mouth, and those little catching sounds turned into a sob when heat and slick flooded Poe in an overwhelming sensation of fullness as Armitage came: hips rutting deeply, mouth opening with his nearly silent cry. The sound of it strained in his throat until just at the end when it cracked with a long drawn out wail - a keening that dragged Poe along with him, into his own orgasm that tore through his defenses with the force of a collision, or maybe an explosion. Poe was shouting, his orgasm seizing so hard it felt as if he was expelled from his own body, to be left suspended, floating tetherless, with nothing but the fastidious clutch of Armitage’s arms to safely catch him.

He drifted like that, bundled up in Armitage’s hold, time passing in long meandering moments, only the thready cadence of Armitage’s breath in his ear anchoring him to awareness. Maybe Poe was more tired than he suspected, or maybe the stims had finally worn off. Or perhaps it was simply the relief he found in Armitage’s surrendering of that festering worry to this more sincere avariciousness that finally let Poe relax. Because even as his head was tilted up into the tender press of Armitage’s lips, Poe could feel the possessive nature to the way Armitage now touched him.

Armitage held him close, lips unrelinquishing of their claim over Poe, despite the way they both trembled. They stayed like that, seeking and finding one another in the slow passing of time that now felt strangely bloated with potential. And Poe thought, surely, if they could survive this, they could survive anything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter would have been posted days ago, but then current events reared ugly, and I decided to spend a few days getting back into a healthy mindset before posting. I hope y'all are staying safe and sharing some love with the important people in your life ♥ I love you all, and thank you for sticking with me through this story.


	15. The Terms

From the _Mandator’s_ bridge, Hux observed the arrival of the last remaining Star Destroyer of a fleet that had once numbered over sixty. The _Harbinger_ emerged from hyperspace as whole as she could be. A third of her blackened dead, the partially amputated length of her port side a ghostly limb of flickering running lights along where her wing tip should have been. But unlike the crippled _Absolution_ , the _Harbinger’s_ engines had mostly been spared. According to her preliminary reports, she was stable enough for hyperspace travel and capable of maintaining life-support without too much strain on her systems.

Of course, what crew remained were so few that the ship could have been nearly in pieces and still could have supported those aboard. Approximately twelve thousand souls manned the _Harbinger_ now, the rest having been harvested for the Sith fleet. The _Harbinger_ had barely made it out of the battle of Exegol, their risky atmospheric jump taking out the wing-tip when they skimmed a fellow Star Destroyer, lucky enough that the damage had spared most of the engines and not caused an eruption within the oxygen and fuel lines.

Acting Captain Sipio had provided the report alongside what had been recorded by their former Captain. The accounts from Exegol painted a harrowing picture of the last six months. Other Star Destroyers, survivors of the Sith fleet who had somehow broke atmosphere amongst the chaos of battle, crewed by Order and cultists alike, had turned on one another after Palpatine’s death. Without the voice of their Lord in their mind, the cultists had gone rogue, slaughtering the Order crew and then hailing the scattered remains of the First Order. Some of the fleet had responded to their distress calls, to be boarded and purged like the rest, before their ships had been driven back down, through that storm of an atmosphere, and into the surface of Exegol itself.

It was just as Hux had feared. Just like Jakku. Just like the Academy. That same _‘to the end’_ mentality that had nearly wiped out the Empire, and now tried to lay claim to the First Order.

It was not useful information, so much as it filled in the gaps of the accounts Parnadee had recorded; fleshed out the report Captain Lorne had given, where the details of Peavey’s transgressions against the Order had lacked the embellishment his personal logs had included. The idea that the Order had suffered this level of loss after the events of Exegol lodged deep alongside all the guilt he already harbored for their fate. He could not help but feel like, in this, Peavey was right. Hux had abandoned the Order when they needed him most. Left them to the wolves of the old guard, and the metaphorical claws of Palpatine himself.

General Hux, traitor to the First Order, now their unlikely savior.

Supreme Leader, if he cared to take the title. Earned, finally, despite the events that had led them all here.

 _You have it, what you always wanted. The First Order is finally yours_. The thought came unbidden, and not for the first time. Over the last two days he’d met the reality of it head-on, confronting not just the man he had once been, but the future he had always dreamed of.

So it struck particularly strange, as he stared down at the last of his tiny fleet, how much he yearned to simply walk away from it all.

He wanted to shrug off this uniform, roll his shoulders and stretch his arms against Ajan Kloss’s heavy heat, squint against her sun and breath in the earthy scent of her rich loam as it sunk beneath his boots. Instead, he shifted under his great coat, finding what warmth he could between the layers of gabberwool. It was not enough. It would never be enough, now that he’d known something better.

Poe stood off to his left side, voice low as he spoke to Captain Lorne.

It should be Hux having this conversation. Him coordinating the necessary arrangements that would prepare the _Harbinger_ for the days to come, and the future the Order was to expect. But his mind scattered across the things that needed to be done, like waves crashing against a cliff side. Inevitably, the waves would wear the cliff down, erode it enough that those once impenetrable rocks would slide into the ocean and drown under their own weight. Hux clung to what he could, wondering how the fuck he had done this for so many years: stood aboard a bridge just like this, commanding a fleet against odds that had been far more dangerous than those they currently faced.

But now, as he observed the people on this bridge and the momentum of the machine as it toiled on without him, he couldn’t help but feel like he had nothing left to offer. That his work with the Order had already come to a close.

“Hey,” Poe’s voice seeped warm into his thoughts, pushing them away not with the violence of a crashing wave, but the gentle ease of a rising tide. His fingers, when they touched his wrist, were as warm as his voice. So warm they almost felt hot. “We’re all set here, if you wanna head to medbay?”

“Yes,” said as Hux pushed down his swelling thoughts, grateful for the escape Poe offered, and the anchor of his touch. Maybe he couldn’t walk away from all of this, but at least he still had Poe at his side. Poe, who looked as exhausted as Hux felt, with the dark circles that had crept beneath his heavy lids, hung so low that the light hardly caught his eyes. But that smile remained. Small and unassuming, pushing at the boundaries of Order decorum, just like his training fatigues broke every bridge rule in the proverbial book.

Hux didn’t care. Just like he didn’t care about the eyes that followed them across the durasteel, or the small smiles Poe seemed to inspire in the officers they passed. And he allowed the back of Poe’s hand to brush his, grateful for that singular connection; a quiet intimacy that was surely a far larger break of decorum than any rogue smile.

No, Hux didn’t care about any of that, not anymore. He took Poe’s hand into his own once the bridge doors closed behind them, a brief squeeze beneath the breezeway that days prior had felt like a mad dash towards death. Now, it only felt like a slow march.

“You seem tired,” Poe said as they turned the corner off the breezeway. “You worried about Phasma?”

“Worried about the grief she’ll give me for allowing you to walk around dressed like a scoundrel? Absolutely.”

Poe grinned at him, eyes crinkling at their corners as he let out of soft laugh. “Don’t worry, I’m gonna head to the officer’s lounge, actually. Give you two some privacy.”

“That’s really not necessary.” Hux felt a misplaced jolt of panic at the thought of separating himself from Poe.

But Poe appeared unaffected, half-smile still rooted in place, as easy as the swing of his gait, the fall of his curls. Too easy, like it was all a well-practiced act.

Hux pressed his lips together and said nothing.

The crossroads unfolded pristine, the durasteel keeping silent the secrets of the mutiny from just days prior. Nothing was left of the bodies they had stacked, or the blood that had been spilled. All of it swept away under the careful guise of order. But there were cracks. Hux could feel them in himself. See them in the men and women who passed them. A wound to the soul that would take far more than a few mouse droids and a bacta patch to heal.

More than a series of anti-radiation hypos, Hux acknowledged when he glanced at Poe. Beneath the lights of the hall he looked pale, gray, despite the warmth of his skin. Poe was sick, and he was trying to hide it, but Hux was no fool. The doctor had warned them that his condition would deteriorate, but Hux knew enough to recognize the sudden severity of Poe’s symptoms was not normal.

He should be _dragging_ Poe to the medbay, kicking and screaming. Wresting him into a bed and knocking him unconscious with a cocktail of suppressants. But as Poe lazily returned an officer’s salute as the door to the lift slid open, mirthful eyes drifting to Hux’s when that same officer stumbled over their feet in their haste to make room, Hux did not have the heart to force Poe into anything. If Poe didn’t want to spend what time they had left together relegated to medbay, Hux was not going to fight him. And it wasn’t like the treatment he needed would be found in an Order sick bed. For all the Order’s technological advancements, their medical sciences endeavored for the preventative health of the community: disease mitigation and genetic optimization - not the kind of treatment an acute illness like radiation poisoning required.

Poe needed medical care, advanced medical care. The kind best found upon a planet within the Core.

“This is my stop,” Poe murmured when the lift slowed to an almost unnoticeable halt. The chime as the door opened came far too quickly, and Hux almost reached for Poe’s hand again. Instead, he watched him back up a step towards the hallway beyond, the officer already long departed.

“Message me when you’re through, okay?” Poe touched his wrist again, lingering this time, long enough Hux could still feel him when he finally pulled away. He flexed his fingers against the sensation, resisted the urge to bring his hand to his chest.

“Of course,” Hux forced out, calm in the face of this storm inside his heart.

“I’ll see you soon,” said as Poe stepped over the threshold and raised his hand in farewell, dark eyes still heavy, still smiling, as the door slid shut.

Hux chewed his lip as the lift resumed its descent, Poe’s face burned into his mind, eyes held fast to the control panel at his side. His fingers twitched against the compulsion to stop the lift and return to the officer’s level. To find Poe and drag him back to their quarters, where they could be together. Safe. Protected. Hidden away from the trappings of a world that had begun to feel like nothing but a burden, one he had carried for far too long.

Instead, he clasped his hands behind his back and rode the lift down, deep into the protective belly of the _Mandator_ , where the medbay was housed. The bright hallway he was deposited into glared with light and life. Here, the walls were white instead of steely black, a visual indication of the cocoon levels that housed the _Mandator’s_ medical facilities and her critical support systems. Within them, life teemed. Officers and troopers alike passed before him. Some surely visiting their injured brethren, others heading for the medical mess hall which, if it was anything like the _Finalizer_ , always served the superior food.

The sheer amount of _people_ struck him all at once.

Without Poe by his side Hux felt untethered, adrift, tipped over and poured out empty, so all that was left was this fractured shell of a man he did not recognize. He really should go back. Find him. Find Poe. Find his warmth, his touch, his words and that ineffable ability of his to make light out of his laughter, and allow it all to fill him back up and make him feel whole. He took a single step back, shifting his weight to his heel as he turned, just as the lift door abruptly slid closed in his face.

It chimed a gentle farewell, durasteel reflecting back at him his own pale expression, and the familiar stare he had spent so many hours of his life dissecting. Now it gazed back unfamiliar, surrounded by a reflected miasma of life he no longer felt a part of, and it suddenly struck him, then, what it was he felt.

Loneliness. He was feeling lonely. Something he had once been so accustomed to. Something he had found refuge in, back when the company he’d been forced to keep were more monsters than men. But it wasn’t the realization that someone had been at his side constantly since his release from his cell on Ajan Kloss that hit him like a blaster bolt to the chest, nor was it the idea that this was simply the first time that he has walked the halls of the _Mandator_ alone. No, it was that Hux felt irrevocably out of place that tore him wide open, made his breath stagger and his palms itch.

And he was suddenly reminded of the base on Ajan Kloss: the filled hallways, the gentle hum of voices, the dampened thunk of boot falls. It rang achingly familiar, and he yearned to feel like a part of it all. And again, just like the base on Ajan Kloss, Hux did not fit. He walked between these worlds; displaced, there but not. Stuck in some liminal space, like he’d already shucked the shackles of his life and now observed the world as a ghost.

He remembered that panicked moment on base, when he’d observed how his crew had moved on without him. When their lives had adapted so quickly to their circumstances. Far faster than his ever could, not when the tenets of duty and responsibility had held him to an expectation of command he had always lived his life in service to. No, command had no place here. He had said so himself. Because while he might have saved these people, they had suffered under a flawed system long enough that they had already changed. So much, that General Hux had no place in the Order, just as General Hux had no place inside him anymore, and was nowhere to be found in the man reflected back at him.

Slowly, Hux turned. Slower yet, he met the eyes of the men and women passing by.

Recognition dawned alongside their hasty salutes, their drawn up shoulders. Despite his efforts to remain disengaged, he met each in brief moments of connection. While most looked away with a quick flicker of panic, faces pinked, steps quickened, others let their stares linger, their heads dip. Little shows of respect, of _gratitude_ , that he did not know how to hold onto. All of it a scattering of change that maybe he should have already grown accustomed to after weeks spent on Ajan Kloss, amongst his former crew, observing as they were assimilated into the Resistance’s fold.

But here, aboard the _Mandator_ , the changes hit hard. Each a blow that left Hux a little more winded, a little less stable, as the weight of what he’d done, what he was doing, and who he had become, settled fully onto his shoulders.

It was their smiles, however, that struck the hardest. Small things, barely there, oftentimes hidden behind a swift salute, or a hang of a head, but striking deeply just the same. But what struck _strange_ , was when he found himself returning each. And then that feeling of loneliness was plucked apart, bit by bit, smile by smile, until it crumbled under their attentions, because Hux was reminded that here, within the Order, no one was ever truly alone.

 _You are the First Order,_ his own words came back to him, cutting clear through his mind, as sharp as the knife he used to wear up his sleeve, _as much as the men and women beside you are._

_As much as I am, and always will be._

Because in the men and women who passed, Hux saw not a stranger, but himself. And it was not General Hux who reflected back at him, it was Armitage.

_-_

For all the times Poe had been aboard a Star Destroyer, he could not honestly say he’d ever bothered to slow down and look at one. The differences were monumental, even if it wasn’t the _Millennium Falcon_ he was comparing the _Mandator_ to. Not even during his military career had Poe ever been aboard a ship of this sheer _size_ before. Corridors criss-crossed each other in a vast network of halls and breezeways, these upper levels wedged out into _Mandator’s_ outer hull as to provide views of deep space that did not depend upon a viewport. And the hall he now traversed was far different from the lower levels, where the hangar was housed and where the brig could be found. Places Poe had been, if not on the _Mandator_ than on one of her sister ships. Here the walls were sleek, unblemished but for the doors that patterned the length, and the ambient floor lights that reflected warm off the shiny steel: the officer’s quarters, and before him, the double doors that led to the lounge.

Sprawled wide open before a seamless transparisteel window, the lounge overlooked the massive hull of the _Conqueror_. It was a dark, dimly lit atmosphere of gentle voices and tinkling glass. Almost comfortable, considering the stringent norms the Order kept. Tables were worked into alcoves lining the walls, little pockets of privacy among the exposed high-top tables where many chose to stand together over their shared drinks. At the center of it all was the bar, manned by two droids and what must be an on-duty officer, the three serving drinks to the slow yet steady trickle of patrons that filled the lounge.

A comfort in its familiarity, even if the patrons were people Poe had once called his enemy.

But two days of this same powerful realization had done little to relieve Poe’s unease. The comfort he had felt days before, when victory had felt fresh and he’d been locked away in his and Armitage’s quarters, already felt like so long ago. Because those two days had also been spent hunched over a fresher bowl, or sequestered away under the thin Order-issued blankets of his and Armitage’s bed.

If there was some blessing to be had from how busy the management of the Order’s impending surrender kept Armitage, it was that Poe had mostly been able to hide away the evidence of his sickness. Because while the shots certainly had to be working, he knew it was only a matter of time before the circles under his eyes grew too dark to be explained away by simple fatigue. He recognized his symptoms were more severe than what the doctor had warned him to expect; that his gums weren’t supposed to bleed when he wasn’t brushing them, that the nausea was only supposed to come after he ate, and that the chills should be able to be smothered by something other than the press of Armitage’s body.

Of all the things Armitage had to worry about right then, Poe didn’t like to think that his health was the most pressing.

A tinkling sound broke melodic across the lounge, through his thoughts. Close enough that when Poe turned to look, the sight of a child in the arms of a protocol droid struck so strange he took a step back, shoulder nearly colliding with an officer. Eyes glanced his way, but he couldn’t tear himself from the sight of a man hurrying over to the droid, arms reaching out to scoop up the child into their chest. The child could not be older than two, and obviously was not supposed to be in the lounge, if the stern expression on the man’s face as he addressed the droid was any indication. Yet, the child in his arms was coddled carefully, protectively, as the officer swept through the doors with the droid on his heels, to disappear into the network of hallways beyond.

 _What the hell_. Poe could not help but think. The sight of a child was way too weird for his radiation-addled mind to fit into this picture, despite his knowledge that there were _families_ aboard the _Mandator_. After all, he’d been with Armitage when he’d prioritized their transfers. But that didn’t change how utterly bizarre it felt to see one. To know that beyond these walls were secrets kept hidden that weren’t the next planet-destroying super-weapon, or a sith lord who was supposed to be dead.

Suddenly desperate for something actually familiar, Poe headed for the bar. If anywhere on a Star Destroyer might resemble something of normalcy for him, it would be here.

“Greetings-” the bartender observed Poe with a careful propriety, lips only twisting together for a brief moment before he pushed out, “-sir.”

“Hey, how’s it going?” Poe forced out his best smile as he leaned against the bar, hoping his discomfort wasn’t as painfully obvious as it felt. The bar top was shiny, as perfectly polished as the walls he had just traversed, not a drop or a spill to be seen. A quick glance down the length showed no one else leaning, or even drinking at the bar. Quickly, Poe shifted his weight back. Right, so maybe even the kriffing bar wasn’t _normal_. “What are the options for a guy who doesn’t have a credit to his name? Is there a choice to like, charge this to my room?”

“Pardon me?” the bartender, somehow, looked more uncomfortable. “Forgive me, sir. I don’t understand-”

“Money. I’m flat broke.”

The bartender cocked his head, eyes roving Poe’s face before something like recognition finally dawned. “The first two drinks are on the house, after that, you may use your monthly allowance for anything more. That is a daily limit that resets with each Alpha shift,” the bartender paused, then slowly added, “sir.”

“Okay, great. I’ll have a whiskey. You have that right? Doesn’t have to be Corellian, anything is fine.”

“Core world spirits are reserved for High Command, sir. Your designator, please?”

_Ah. Right. Of kriffing course._

“So yeah, ‘bout that-”

“Come on Lieutenant Garrison, don’t give him a hard time.” The voice would have been familiar even without the modulator warping his Batonn sector accent. “You know who he is.”

“Hey, it’s _you_!” The platoon leader from the hangar bay. The very same man he had grabbed the face of - well, the helmet of - and basically declared his intentions for Armitage to. Outside of his armor, he looked like any other officer in the lounge. But there were differences, when Poe looked closely. The cut the gabberwool was not identical, less tailored and more utilitarian. And his boots were laced where the others were seamless, the belt at his waist a bold holster for his blaster. But it was the voice that gave him away, and the comfortable camaraderie Poe immediately felt in his presence. Like Finn, it seemed the troopers were given a little more freedom from that decorum that Armitage and the other higher-ranking officers so strictly held themselves to.

The bartender placed a glass of golden liquid on the bar top before Poe, but the platoon leader grabbed it before Poe had the chance. “Follow me, you can sit with us.”

Across the lounge, Poe was led to one of those alcoves, already occupied by another out-of-armor trooper. This one wasn’t as easily recognizable, at least not until she reached for her drink and Poe noticed the medical officer insignia patched onto her sleeve. The medic, the kindly medic who had cared for her comrade with a gentleness Poe had recognized as empathy, and not just a trooper performing their job. When her eyes lifted and met his, they widened with her own obvious recognition.

“Oh, so you’re alright!”

“Hey, yeah, good as new, and just as hot, hopefully,” Poe grinned, hoping the charm of his smile would distract her from the shadows he knew hung under his eyes. He’d wanted to avoid medbay for a reason, he really didn’t need her threatening to drag him back across the ship all over again. But she said nothing as he slid into the booth across from her, her eyes following him with an interest that felt comfortably unprofessional.

“Dameron, right?” The platoon leader asked as he sat next to Poe.

“You can call me Poe,” said as his drink was placed before him. He reached for it, if only to occupy his hands. When he had decided to come here, he hadn’t quite thought through what it was he wanted to do. People watch, likely. The same sort of thing he would do at a normal bar.

Definitely, he had not expected to get accosted into a conversation. What would Armitage do, if he saw him surrounded by a bunch of troopers? This break in ranks had to be a breach of _decorum -_ even on Ajan Kloss Poe had seen very little intermingling of officers and troopers, not until weeks into their defection. Not that Poe was an officer.

Except maybe he was. At least by proxy, because the whiskey was absolutely _Corellian_.

“Poe Dameron,” the medic said slowly. “You’ve got a reputation around here.”

“To be fair, I have a reputation just about everywhere,” Poe let his grin become sheepish, as he lifted his glass halfway into a salute. The medic returned his gaze, smile reserved but there, as she twirled her own glass atop the table beside her datapad. “What can I call you?”

“I’m EN-0029, and that is-”

“-I’m Fort.”

“Fort,” Poe repeated, smile widening again as he turned to meet his eyes. “It’s nice to meet you both, officially, that is.”

“I still don’t know why you chose _Fort_ ,” the medic, or rather, EN-0029 said as she lifted a hand in a wave. “You can choose any name you want and your pick something that sounds like passing gas.”

“It sounds strong, resilient. A fort is a-”

“-I know what a _fort_ is, and I also know I won’t be calling you Fort for the rest of our karking lives.”

“I dunno, I like it,” Poe said, looking between these two troopers and feeling the unease of his presence dissipate with their comfortable banter.

“You would, _Poe,_ ” EN-0029 leveled him with a withering look, “Fort and Poe, cut from the same kriffing refresher cloth.”

“ _EN-0029-_ ”

“Stars,” Poe laughed, the sound spilling genuine, “I like you. You’re _funny_.”

“One of us has to be,” said as she turned to Fort and rolled her eyes. “So you found the General, I take it?”

“Yeah, I did. Thanks for that, by the way. Not sure what would have happened if you guys hadn’t come across me first.” He looked between them both as he said it, curious to see if there was any emotion to be read, some hint of the trauma they might have suffered. He sure knew he had dealt with his own share of guilt after his mutiny, but then again, neither of these two had led theirs.

“Just doing our jobs,” Fort said as he met EN-0029’s eyes. The frown on her face revealed that none of this was quite so simple. “Though to be fair, it will be us owing your lot, soon enough.”

Poe swallowed, suddenly feeling out of his depth in the turn of their conversation. He was as unsure about the future of the Order as these people were, the details of their surrender an ongoing negotiation that Poe had only caught snatches of.

“I wouldn’t approach it like that. The New Republic is-” Poe said carefully. He couldn’t promise these people anything. It wasn’t within his power, though the desire was there, demanding he say something. But the words of comfort would not come, not when he knew what he did of the New Republic, and what had been bartered in trade for all this. “-they are just as eager as we are, for this war to end,” he settled on, eyes steady on the glass of whiskey between his hands.

“What are they like? The Core worlds?” Fort asked, voice dropping low enough to not be overheard. His curiosity felt like a secret, as sequestered away as the families who haunted this ship.

“Well,” Poe considered what to tell them, unsure how to frame what would surely be a cultural shock that nothing could prepare them for. “They’re technologically advanced, way more than the Rim. And their cities are big. Bigger than anything I’ve ever seen out here, but there are a lot of jungle habitats too, and deserts. It’s got a bit of everything, and it doesn’t take too long to jump between each. I grew up on Yavin-IV, but spent a lot of time on Coruscant, both have their charms.”

Fort nodded, attention focused inward upon something Poe was not beholden too, but appeared in the tilt of his chin, and the pull of his lips. Poe gambled to call it excitement. EN-0029, however, shifted where she sat. She looked at Poe as if he were a specimen to be studied, something as strange and curious as the child in the arms of that Order officer.

“It’s hard to believe this is happening at all,” she said softly, eyes darting to Fort as she continued, “It feels like a trick. Like gravity is going to be pulled out from underneath us the moment we step foot off this ship.”

“It won’t,” he and Fort said in unison, and Poe could not help but meet him with a grin.

Fort returned it, briefly, but genuinely, before turning it upon EN-0029, “The General wouldn’t let that happen.”

Ice crashed over him. Poe forced himself to remain calm. To not excuse himself from the table and run all the way back to medbay, damned radiation poisoning or not.

“Now that I can cheers to,” EN-0029 said from what may as well have been a great distance, Poe’s vision swimming as she lifted her glass to him. “To the General.” Poe couldn’t hide how his hand shook as he met her salute, how the liquid trembled when the rim touched his lips. Nor when he set it down, and a little spilled over onto EN-0029’s datapad. He offered a quick apology but she had already pulled a kerchief from her pocket to wipe it up.

The touch of her fingers illuminated the screen, and there was no mistaking the familiarity of _Force_.

“Hey, you play _Force_?” Poe latched onto it, desperate.

And he clung to it, when EN-0029 nodded her head quickly, the dim light of the room finally reaching her eyes, as her grin split her face genuine. And as he pulled out his own datapad to navigate to his deck selection screen, Fort’s presence beside him a comfortable weight of attention as he watched his partner’s and Poe’s game unfold, Poe could only think of Armitage and the promise he had made to protect these people.

They didn’t know. They _wouldn’t_ know. And the more time Poe spent around the Order, the more he realized they never could.

-

_10:26:22 Captain Lorne: Peavey has been discovered dead in his cell. The coroner has confirmed his death to be suicide by final directive._

He stared down at the message, mind struggling to construct the appropriate reply. Something less ‘ _About karking time’_ and more ‘ _The Order will mourn his loss_ ’.

_10:28:03 General Hux: Do not jettison the body. Have it preserved within the morgue until ordered otherwise._

If Armitage were honest with himself, and he was trying to be, now more than ever, Peavey’s death came as a relief. Certainly, he could admit to himself that it was to be expected. Imperial and Order tradition had bestowed upon all of them not just a deeply rooted sense of _‘to the end’_ , but also a very physical trigger to ensure they carried it out. The final directive, a fake tooth that, when broken, triggered an electrical shock to the brain that would have provided Peavey with a quick, if not entirely painless death.

His tongue smoothed over his own tooth. The implant was the same pearlescent cast as his natural enamel, his trigger long since removed. It was a choice he had made shortly after Snoke promoted him to General, when his Force chokes had become frequent enough he grew legitimately concerned the trigger would be activated by accident. He’d had it removed under the guise of a short leave, not entrusting the procedure to remain secret within even the Order’s hushed medical privacy practices.

Now, as he hesitated outside Phasma’s door, the idea of ‘ _to the end_ ’ took on a whole new meaning, and Armitage wondered if maybe he hadn’t made a terrible mistake.

Three short, sharp raps, and a half-smothered _‘come in’_ helped end _that_ train of thought.

“Hux!”

Phasma was exactly where he had left her, wolfish grin splitting her face as her icy eyes latched onto his. Not much had changed, except perhaps for her coloring. Where she lounged against the propped up pillows, she beamed with a radiance befitting her heroics. And she knew it. The smarmy self-indulgent grin was as cheeky as Poe’s own, and Armitage was suddenly confronted with the knowledge that maybe he actually did have a type. Because for all their differences, Phasma and Poe shared an uncomfortable ability to make him smile.

And a knack for saving his life.

“So the rumors are true, you survived surgery,” he drawled, equal parts bored and disappointed, his voice only wavering a little as the door _snicked_ shut behind him. Phasma’s eyes caught his, held them for a fractured moment, surely recognizing the tumulting sea of his thoughts. But just as Phasma had propelled him through the _Mandator_ ’s halls but days before, here she dragged him out of them and into her not quite gentle care. Here, tucked away with Phasma in this medbay room, Armitage felt himself unravel, just a little.

“Yeah, I survived, but you should see the med droid.” He watched her grin turned vicious, her shoulders rolling back in something like a preen. Armitage didn’t miss the flinch, however. Nor did he overlook the bandage that peeked out beyond the medical shroud.

“I was unaware we were running short on bacta.”

“I want this one to leave a scar.” Her face transformed with her words, grin splitting into a sharpened snarl. “I left Peavey for you, now I wish I’d just blown the fucker’s face off.”

Armitage remained quiet as he took the chair from the corner and placed it beside Phasma’s bed so he could sit. He arranged himself carefully: leaning back far enough to not be proper, ankle crossed over his knee, so his leg fell open lazily, all an attempt to appear unaffected as he finally spoke, “He’s dead, you know. I received word on my way here.”

Phasma regarded him, a beat longer than a breath, so he knew she meant it when she said, “Sure took him long enough.” Armitage noted the way her jaw shifted, thought he could imagine her tongue sliding over her own implant. She’d have been too old when she joined to Order to have had it be required regulation. She would have voluntarily opted for it. Not at all surprising, Armitage acknowledged. Having a deadly tooth implant was very much the status-quo for Phasma. “Peavey was a coward, but at least he got something right, in the end.”

_To the end._

Armitage shifted, comfort elusive. Beneath him, the chair dug into all the wrong places. His body screamed to stand, to pace and to fight. Instead, he said, almost softly, “He might have made a good peace offering.” The words left his mouth before he could stop them. Not that he necessarily would have turned Peavey over to the New Republic. He was aware he could be cruel, but he would not wish his own fate on anyone else of the Order, not even Peavey. “However, this is for the best.”

“You think it would have made a difference? Handing him over?”

“No,” spoken with an honesty that was becoming more and more difficult to swallow. “Peavey means nothing to them. For all his ego, the only damage he ever caused was to the Order. The New Republic might have lauded him as a hero for how many of us he got killed.”

“How many are left?” Phasma breathed, cheeky façade finally falling away to expose something of the vulnerability that, in this, they both shared.

“No more than half a million, including the _Harbinger’s_ crew. They made contact at the end of last cycle, it seems our messages finally got through.”

“Half a million,” left Phasma’s mouth with her breath. “Half a fucking million. Sixty Star Destroyers, down to just three.”

“Four percent of our population,” he clarified. Not that he needed to - not to Phasma. She would know. She would understand.

“ _Fuck_.”

Silence stretched into thin lines, barely connecting this moment to the last. Whatever sense of normalcy being back aboard a Star Destroyer lent him was lost to this revelation, where his mind spiraled off into a confrontation with everything he had lost, and everything he still stood to lose. He had promised to save the Order, and he would, no matter what little was left. And no matter the cost asked.

“We’re still working out the logistics of the Order’s surrender,” Armitage eventually spoke into the quiet. “I anticipate we’ll have an action plan ready within the cycle. We’ll need to give everyone time to prep for disembarkation. I have a feeling they’ll want to start immediate decommissioning of the ships,” he rattled off as Phasma watched him. There was another conversation to be had with her, one he was not ready for. Phasma, however, seemed determined to have it.

“ _Armitage_ ,” she drew his name out, so it hung bloated between them, swollen heavy with the weight of what she asked, “what about _you_.”

Armitage looked past her, voice thin as he responded, “I’ll oversee the planning alongside the New Republic. I will see this through until the end.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Phasma sighed, “You _know_ what I mean.”

“I believe my role in all this was already made clear.”

“You’re not actually going through with it, are you?” The question he and Poe had been avoiding, laid bare by Phasma, as raw as the wound seated in her side.

At least her wound would have the chance to scar.

“I am.”

Air blew out her nose in a harsh snort, sucked back through her teeth in a jaw-clenching hiss. “Why are you doing this? Why don’t you _run_?”

“Ah, and it’s Peavey you call a coward?”

Phasma glared at him. “It’s not the fucking same and you know it.”

“No, you’re right, it’s not.” Not nearly the same. “My surrender is the only bargaining chip we have left. And they have already agreed. I will not gamble the safety of our people to the New Republic’s good will. I’ve made my promises, to them and to the Order.”

Ninety-six percent of the Order was dead, their memory reduced down to nothing the numbers in their database and the stories their comrades would tell, the stars themselves the resting place of souls who had never known soil as a home.

The Order, reduced to stardust, the same kind that surely scattered thick through the debris of the Hosnian System.

It was a frail mercy, perhaps, that in this the fate of the Order felt just. But what justice was there, really, in the aftermath of war? Armitage could not help but think none of this was just. Not the lives that had been lost, nor the acceptance of this surrender, or the execution that loomed. No, Armitage could not help but taste the sour curdle of revenge under this false guise of mercy. But the victors make the rules, and Armitage was not a victor. He had lost this game, just like he had all the others.

“If there is any hope for peace, a sense of justice must first be achieved. I wish to keep this quiet, to preserve the good will I’ve built for the New Republic amongst the Order. It will make the assimilation into their news lives easier to undertake. I can only predict that time outside the structure of the Order will break down the loyalty their conditioning has inspired in me. What I worry about the most is a revolt against what they will certainly view as a personal attack, when I am executed.”

“Don’t say that,” Phasma breathed out with a rush, face breaking over what must be pain, though from her wound or his words Armitage did not know. “I thought it was up for discussion? You don’t know what they will choose to do.”

He did. He knew. Because this was the promise he had made, and the lesson he had been taught. Mercy may be granted to the whole of the Order, but it was never meant for men like him.

“Don’t be naive, Phasma. I destroyed an entire system.”

“The seat of their very _government._ Their _military fleet_. We were at war. And they destroyed _us_.”

“Technically,” Armitage mused, “that was the Resistance, and Palpatine. Perhaps, by extension, myself. After all, I was the spy.”

Her snarl was sharp, but it was her eyes that cut into him the deepest. “ _Guilt_ does not suit you, Armitage. It seems to me that the only judgment being passed is that on yourself.”

“I _am_ guilty, Phasma,” Armitage said quietly. “I’ve never claimed I wasn’t. The only difference was that I thought we would win. We did not. And now it’s the victors who get to decide what constitutes justice.”

“We did what we had to-” emotion slipped past her snarl, the sharp glint of her eyes turning wet. “-to survive. How is that _justice_?”

“Something tells me that argument won’t get me far in front of a jury.”

“ _Armitage._ ” Her shout ended with a gasp, her hand coming up to press into her side. And when her wet eyes met his, Armitage felt an echoing pain in his chest, a deeply rooted ache that may as well have taken the place of his heart. “You can’t stop fighting. Not now, not when we’ve come so far. So what, you go to trial, and you just let them have their way? You’re not the man they think you are. You’ve proven that already, to the fucking _Resistance_ of all people.”

“Maybe.”

“Not _maybe,_ ” the anger was gone, to be replaced with a plea. “You don’t deserve this, Armitage. You know it, I know it, Dameron and the rest of the Resistance knows it. Fuck, the whole Order knows it, and the New Republic must too, by now. We were at war. People die during war. That we struck a large enough blow to potentially end everything right then and there doesn’t make you _guilty_ of anything. It was a strategic choice and fuck, if it didn’t work. Or at least would have if Ren hadn’t thrown it all to literal Sith hell.”

Armitage had felt much the same, but very little of what Phasma said would make a difference. Not to the people of the New Republic. Not to men like Fineas Ofant.

“We can’t blame Kylo Ren,” Armitage said calmly, “He was as much a pawn as we were. If he hadn’t been so stupid to play along Palpatine would have found some other way to secure his power over us. The Order was never going to be what we imagined it to be, what I thought it was. We were all played for fools. But that doesn’t change our circumstances.

“If I could walk away from it all, I would,” his voice breaks then, the emotions he thought he could keep buried pushing through his surface like the roots of some ancient tree, “but walking away has never been an option for me, and I don’t expect it to become one now.”

Phasma stared at him, _through_ him, reading his thoughts like they were carved into his very flesh. He had to look away.

“Believe it or not, but I don’t actually want to die, Phasma. Not anymore.”

“You would have let Pryde kill you.”

“Yes.”

“But that was before.”

“Yes.”

“Before _Dameron_.”

“Must you?” Armitage sighed, feeling his face flush, eyes flicking back to meet hers for the briefest, yet somehow most drawn out moment in time. “ _Yes_ , alright? I want to live for him, for us.”

“For your future together.”

Armitage grimaced, “Since when were you so romantic?”

“Since my only friend fell in love.”

“Phasma, _don’t_.” Armitage hunched forward as he said it, sinking his head into his hands, curling up against the emotions Phasma seemed determined to expose. This was not their dynamic. Not this blunt disarming of his defenses or the subsequent quiet attention. Certainly, not the hand that touched his shoulder, and then his hair. Phasma’s fingers lingered with a weight that felt heavier than they had any right to bear. And if this had been _before_ , he would have brushed them away with a sneer.

But this was not before. _Before_ had long since become another lifetime altogether, one where the future was no more than the tamping down of some vermiculous rebel uprising, the plotting of their next maneuver against an enemy’s supply chain, or an evening dissecting his recent actions and their likelihood to inspire Snoke or Ren’s wrath. No, the future Armitage now envisioned, in those fragile moments between reality and dreaming, involved nothing more than him on the back of Poe’s speeder, going nowhere but their next somewhere, because each other was all they could possibly ever need.

Armitage wanted to live. He wanted that life. He wanted it for Poe, but he also wanted it for himself. But over and over Armitage had learned that the things he wanted were not actually his to be had. But he could not shake the something that had lodged in his chest, a warm bloom that felt as unfamiliar as the fingers stroking his hair. Something that told him that it was worth it, if only for the chance. Because he may not believe he could have that future he imagined, but he found he could not help but want it.

He and Phasma remained like that, locked in this unfamiliar familiarity, something that belonged back in the wilds of Ajan Kloss, not here aboard a First Order Dreadnaught. Armitage could not help but confront all that had changed, in himself, in Phasma, and in the uprooted system that had once been the First Order. None of them were the same, and there was no going back. There was only forward, and Armitage had to trust that where this was all headed would be different enough to possibly thwart fate itself.

“Care for a game?” Phasma eventually said, when his emotion had passed and the acute arch of his shoulders had relaxed. Her fingers slid from his hair, to touch the datapad at the edge of her bedside table. And when Armitage nodded his head, grateful for not just the distraction, but the reminder of why he had done this, and what it all meant, he thought maybe it wasn’t so much about thwarting fate, as out maneuvering her.

He stared down at the selection screen, fingertip hovering over the droid deck. It glowed up at him: the droid emperor’s face an emotionless shield, its black cape half-hiding the blaster arm hanging at its hip, a single foot resting atop a fallen enemy, dragging behind it the broken housing of an injured comrade across a battlefield that smoked with the remains of an army that bled, rather than sparked. A card as familiar as the strategy he had spent his life playing, a deck he knew like the back of his hand: its strengths, its weaknesses, and the sort of conflict he had spent years mastering.

It had served him well. There was no denying how far it had gotten him. But as his finger hovered over the image, and heart hammered a different beat inside his chest, Armitage thought, maybe, it was time to choose differently.

-

Space unraveled into a distant swath of darkness, the stars of the Unknown Regions thinly sprinkled across a landscape that had always felt familiar despite its changing patterns. Somewhere among those stars would be Yavin-IV, Ajan Kloss, Coruscant, Chandrila, Naboo: worlds full of life, of people and plants and creatures, all beholden to the passing of their sun, and the shadows of their moons. But here on the _Mandator_ , staring across this scattering of stars, as deep into space as Poe had ever gone, it was easy to feel like this ship was all the life there was. Like everything else was only an idea, rather than something he could reach out and touch.

Across the observation deck, two First Order officers were bent together in hushed conversation. Homogenous in ways different from the Stormtroopers, yet different enough that Poe watched on in idle fascination. The two woman were close, that much was obvious. They stood together before the transparisteel, staring off into space beyond, shoulder to shoulder but bodies angle together in a way to suggest a private intimacy. Friends, Poe had at first thought. But now that he’d the time to watch them, he knew them to be lovers.

It was curious, really. The tells he recognized, little things that he had thought unique to Armitage. Between the women existed a quiet conservative connection. A careful orchestration of touch that came together into an intimacy that felt so much more poignant than the displays of affection he had spent his life participating in. It seemed that the strict adherence to structure that the Order had built itself upon knew no boundary, not even within interpersonal relationships. So when one of the women took the other’s hand, drew her close enough to tip their heads together, and shadow closed over the star-flung light of space beyond their faces, Poe could only presume it a bold display of affection within a world where touch, let alone emotion, were things only meant for behind closed doors.

He ached for Armitage. Wished he’d gone with him to visit Phasma, rather than opting to wander the _Mandator_ alone. But in all honestly, right then, medbay was the last place he wanted to be. EN-0029 had not remarked on his condition, but a droid or one of the doctors would have been bound to, and then he’d be relegated to a bed, locked away from Armitage and all the work that still needed to be performed to ensure the safe surrender of the Order.

Locked away from Armitage, who had been slipping into that distant place inside him far too often. Not so much avoiding Poe as he was the impending conversation around what came next; not with the Order, but for himself.

So Poe’s health could wait - it _would_ wait.

His datapad buzzed within the pocket of his fatigues. A message, from Armitage, asking where he could be found. Relief consumed him, as he quickly typed out his location, eyes straying to the women across the way and the soft whisper of words being exchanged. A glint in the dim light suggested a smile, and Poe briefly considered relocating, but he didn’t know if he had the energy to walk the long halls in search of somewhere new. He liked it here. Liked the way the stars unfolded before him, the strange companionship these two Order women unknowingly offered. He felt peaceful here, and content. And soon Armitage would join him, and they could share this together. Make another memory, a memory that would be so different from all the others Poe had of Star Destroyers. The ones where the halls weren’t long and peaceful, but short and panicked, filled with anxiety, with bodies and blood and the screaming burn of blaster fire.

Poe hadn’t seen then, what he saw now.

While her weapons were meant for battle, the halls of this place weren’t. They were a home. A planet of durasteel without the tether of a sun. A fortress of souls who wandered space like a tribe of nomads might wander the dunes of desert. Always moving, always searching, taking what they needed from a world they were told they did not belong in. But just like Fort and EN-0029 and their platoon who had saved his life, these two women were no more different from the people he had spent his life surrounded by. Comrades who cared for one another, finding a moment of solace together outside the burden of battle and responsibility.

They glanced over, when the door to the observation deck _whooshed_ open. Light spilled too bright from the hallway, briefly silhouetting Armitage’s lengthened figure across the darkened room. He was wearing that coat again, the same Poe remembered from all those early holos. A greatcoat, Armitage had told him, when a droid had delivered it to their door two days before.

He’d been cold. An admission, quietly confessed.

 _‘I’ve grown used to it,’_ spoken so, so softly, when he’d slipped the coat on.

Ajan Kloss.

 _‘I miss it,’_ had been left unsaid.

Armitage would never see Ajan Kloss again. Not soon, at least, if it all.

His boots thumped dull against the floor, measured steps that brought him swiftly to Poe’s side, and then upon the bench next to him. He sat close enough to touch.

“Hey,” Poe murmured into the silence. He’d never been on a ship as quiet as the _Mandator_ , a silence so dense it made every stray word feel like a transgression.

Armitage, however, had no problem breaking that silence. “I should have known I would find you here.”

“Went to the officer’s lounge, first, actually. Not the easiest crowd, those officers.” After his game of Force, Poe had excuse himself, not eager to leave EN-0029 and Fort, but unsure if he could manage being picked apart piecemeal by their questions. Not when the secrets he kept felt so close to his surface, just one feverish slip of his tongue away from exposing all this for what it actually was. But Armitage didn’t need to know that. What Armitage needed was for Poe to be strong, for the both of them.

“They’re curious about you, that’s all,” Armitage read the situation as well as a commander of people should. “Their lives will be changing very quickly over the next several weeks. Adaption is something we are good at. Outright change, not so much.”

“I know,” Poe breathed, “I remember.”

“Yes, well, the crew of the _Finalizer_ would have been better prepared than most. I always sought a certain individuality in my officers. Homogeny does not inspire creative thinking, nor an ability to think on one’s feet.”

Poe smiled, he couldn’t help it. “I didn’t mean them, I meant you.”

“Ah,” Armitage glanced at him, his pale eyes bright in the starlight. “Of course.”

“You don’t remember?” Poe leaned in closer, so their own shadows closed between their bodies. “That time your life changed too quickly, and I had to drag you into a supply closet, and then steal you away on a camping trip, so you could re-find your center?”

“Is that what you were doing?” Armitage asked in a hushed voice, “I thought you were simply trying to get into my pants.”

Poe laughed, sound spilling loud and booming, until it didn’t. A small cough wracked his chest, and his voice sputtered out into a series of short, sharp gasps. He covered his mouth with his fist, turning away to smother the sound, out of place in the quiet of the observation deck, but he was too late. Armitage’s eyes were boring into him, peeling away the humor and the ease to reveal everything Poe thought he’d managed to hide. His coughing tapered off as quickly as it came on, his breaths drawing in full if not deeply. But when he turned back to Armitage, their eyes met, and Poe knew he’d been found out.

Or maybe Armitage had known, all along. Because when his lips pressed into a line and his gaze drifted down to Poe’s fist and the flecks of darkness that stained it, there was not shock in his expression, but concern.

“I’ll be fine.”

“You need to be in medbay.”

Again, their eyes met, and somehow Armitage’s face had not closed off. No, Poe could only see a pleading helplessness, the same sort of expression Poe knew he’d worn himself too many times to name. Not when the past several weeks had been nothing but them fighting fate for every shred of time together they could hold onto to.

“I know you’re sick Poe.”

“The injections-”

“-are not _enough_.” It hissed out like a command, and from the corner of his eye he saw the two women look over, the stillness of their bodies saying more than the words they’d never dare speak. They’d recognized Armitage, that much was clear.

“Not here,” Poe said softly, a plea of his own as he met Armitage’s stare. “I know I do, but it can wait, there’s too much left to do.”

“Stubborn fool,” harsh words, spoken fondly - _desperately_. Poe felt the flush spread across his face, the pull of a sheepish smile at the corner of his mouth. Armitage’s lips pressed closed again, words stoppered up as his eyes flickered over Poe’s face, then down to his fist, and back again. His worry was plain, what he wanted to say obvious, but they both knew where this conversation was headed, and neither had any desire to face it. Not now, not when time was already running so short.

Whatever placid ease the last several days had offered them had already been spoiled. Now, all they had left were these last few dredges. And Armitage would not relegate him to a sick bed, not when these last few cycles may be all the freedom they had left, together.

A pattern of footfalls broke over the silence that had replaced the shadows between them. The two women walked by with a careful consideration, moving quick in the dim light as they took in the sight of their beloved General Hux spending his own intimate moment with his rebel pilot lover. Like the base on Ajan Kloss, here on the _Mandator_ the rumor mill worked in overtime. Poe had seen the internal message boards. He’d read the threads, the ones no longer hidden behind the grayed-out filter of the security algorithm Armitage himself had lifted as one of his first commands.

Their heads both bobbed with small nods. An acknowledgment which landed so strangely familiar that Poe could not smother his grin. And when one of the women met his eyes and for the briefest, most finely threaded moment, something communal passed between them. A relief and a mutual understanding that should have felt out of place, but did not. It felt normal. It felt comfortable. It felt _human_.

“You really sure you want to do this?” Poe asked softly after they’d left, and he and Armitage were alone. Humorlessly, he admitted, “I could do it, if you wanted. Run away with you. With the Order.”

“Since when were you this selfish, Dameron?” Armitage spoke into the quiet darkness. His voice was steady, but his eyes did not meet Poe’s. Instead, he stared out the viewport, face sallow in the cold light, pale enough to again resemble those old holos, but still so different, because only now could Poe see what had maybe always been there.

“Since I realized how wrong we’ve all been about each another.”

Armitage stayed silent, but it wasn’t because he was considering his not-offer. They both knew where this was all headed, even if neither possessed the will to voice the words. Instead, Armitage said, “The Order is not what you think it is.”

“I know.” But that didn’t mean it couldn’t become something worthwhile, under Armitage’s care. It was a thought Poe didn’t dare share, because he also knew now, that the sort of Order he could envision only existed because Armitage was no longer the person he had been before. And the man he had become held no desire for things like galactic dominion, because he had only ever sought those things as a means to an end, an end he had found in Poe.

Safety. Protection. Acceptance.

Love.

“It is also not what I thought it was,” Armitage continued, as Poe watched on. “But there was value in it, despite the intentions of the men who shaped it. There were also good people. Smart, intelligent, visionary people. Their voices were smothered, long before mine was. But what I believed in, what we all believed in, it may have been a lie, but it was not worthless. It can’t be. Not if these people are going to adapt, move forward with their lives and become healthy, contributing members of society.” Armitage’s eyes dropped, to stare at the hands clasped in his lap. As calmly as his words came, his hands were fisted tight together, beguiling an anxiety Poe knew they both felt. “I want to ensure they believe that where they came from was, if not good, then not bad. That they are not irrevocably broken. That the lives they build for themselves after this will be worthwhile.”

“I think you have,” said Poe softly, “I think you are doing just that.”

“That is my hope.” Armitage turned to him then, eyes glinting like the distant stars that scattered across the swath of space before them. “But not all of them will have someone like you in their life, to help remind them.”

Poe felt the warmth in his face before he felt the sting in his eyes, “You can keep helping them, it doesn’t have to end here.”

In his eyes, Poe saw the truth. Not the finality Poe expected, but a determination to see this thing through; a strength, one that had not been there, before, but did not inspire within Poe confidence, but fear.

He was not ready for this. He would never be ready for this.

“I have accomplished what I set out to do, and for that, I am proud of what I’ve done for the Order, and confident in the choices I’ve made on their behalf. But my part in all this has come to a close.”

Poe opened his mouth, to say _no, it doesn’t have to be this way_ , but Armitage silenced him with a shake of his head.

“What comes next will not be easy, Poe. But it must happen. If I want at all to have a life with you, a real life, not one spent running from my past, I must first face it.”

Poe didn’t remember when he’d begun shaking, but it was there, beneath his skin, a faint tremble that quivered in his shoulders, in his hands. And his voice, when he breathed out, “Who are they to decide whether you deserve that life or not?” cracked over his words.

“The same people you have been fighting for, all this time.”

His laugh rushed out, short and sickly. What was he to say to that? To the _truth_?

“Poe.” Suddenly, Armitage was close, close enough that Poe could feel his breath on his cheek, and then his fingers, at his chin. Poe looked at Armitage, and saw the honesty in his eyes as he said, “I will fight for myself. And I think, if it comes to it, others will fight for me too. But just like I need the Order to believe in the good will the New Republic has offered, you and I do too. Maybe we could run, and maybe the New Republic would still accept the Order’s surrender, but that would not be living, it would be surviving, and I’ve spent my life surviving. Now, I want to live.”

There was a conviction behind Armitage’s words. An assurance that didn’t quite reach deep enough to comfort, but touched that noble, dutiful hero still inside Poe who had once believed in the system that now felt so much like an enemy. As corrupt as the First Order had been, at least their corruption made sense: the black to their supposed white, where a Sith lord pulled the strings of the puppets he had placed.

Within the New Republic, there was no enemy. No evil player to blame for the things Poe felt. They were the galaxy itself, and all the shades of gray that encompassed it. Not right or wrong or good or evil. They were mistakes, and they were miracles, they were mercy and revenge and kindness and cruelty. And they were as fallible as gravity itself was infallible.

Poe said, voice breaking. “I can’t lose you Armitage, not ever, and not like this.”

“Where is that hope you rebels are always espousing?” said as Armitage’s fingers trailed his cheek.

“You’re too important,” Poe whispered, “to leave to hope.”

Armitage smiled at him, a small thing that looked as frail as Poe felt, and said, “I need to do this Poe. Not for them, or for the Order, but for myself.” Despite his words, Armitage looked as terrified as Poe felt, and something broke inside him - some dam of a thing that released with his grief, and all the truths he’d been denying, in his crushing desire to hold onto Armitage forever.

Emotion caught in Poe’s chest, wrenching sound from his lungs as he shuddered in a short, staggered breath. He grabbed Armitage without warning, arms sliding inside his greatcoat to wrap around the insubstantial width of him, to pull them together in a hard press. There, cheek to Armitage’s shoulder, lips pressed to the skin above his collar, the past two days caught up to him in a rush. Adrenaline had kept him going, fueled by the victory they’d achieved that had felt so monumental, like he was standing atop to very axis of the galaxy itself. Not it all crumbled beneath the reality he faced.

Poe wept for it, and the hope he had once held. Because all he had left to hold onto was Armitage, and even he would be taken from him soon.

No, not taken. Handed over, _surrendered_ , by the terms Armitage himself had set.

 _I need to do this Poe_. Could he ever understand the guilt Armitage felt? Could he really ever place himself into his position, where the machine he had dreamt up, had built and had fired, was singularly responsible for so much suffering?

How could any single man shoulder that burden?

Was that why he needed to do this?

Armitage had spoken of it, once, so many weeks back. There at the edge of a cliff watching a blood red sun set over Ajan Kloss’s mountain tops. The desire for forgiveness, and the surety that it would lead to his death. But the Armitage that sat beside him now did not sound like a man facing down his death. He sounded like a man facing a reckoning of his soul.

-

He couldn’t say how long he sat there, eyes trained on the datapad in his lap, gazing down at the holo coordinates he had received from the _Falcon_. Here, under the dimmed lights of the bedroom, sat at the small desk efficiency so similar to the ones he’d spent hours at throughout the course of his life, his loneliness should not feel so acute. But then again, anathema to his life on Ajan Kloss, the _Mandator_ was cold, harsh, sterile - particularly so when Poe was not at his side.

In the adjacent room, Poe slept. Armitage had waited, determined that he do this alone.

Swallowing, his finger hovered over the icon that would make the call. It trembled with his racing heartbeat, beating so fast that Armitage had to force himself into a tenuous calm by counting out his breaths, slowing his inhales, extending his exhales, until his heart no longer felt like it was hammering a hole through his chest.

Then he tapped the pad’s screen, the icon illuminating with the outgoing hail.

Over the long light-years of distance, the connection dragged time to a crawl. He shifted where he sat, stretching out his legs against the stiffness that had begun to settle. Everything in his body felt coiled tight with tension, muscles rigid as he held still, refusing to fidget, to show any form of weakness, despite the fact he was alone. Hadn’t he done the very same, when making those calls to Snoke? Sat at his desk aboard the _Finalizer_ , dreading a conversation that at the best of times devolved into scathing ridicule, and at their worst a Force attack that left him choking on his own bile.

This chair was not as comfortable as that at his workstation aboard the _Finalizer_ , and the call he was making was not to one of the men from his memories. Like so much else in Armitage’s life, even this brief interlude with his past was nothing more than a haunting transience.

Now, as his datapad chimed a confirmation for the accepted holo-call, Armitage felt his past and his present slide against one another, like two tectonic plates fighting for dominance, two halves a whole that no longer fit together, but still suffered, as it tore itself apart.

He transferred the call to the holo-projector embedded into the desk, schooling his face into an indifferent mask as he accepted the transmission.

Leia Organa’s holo broke with the static of hundreds of millions of light-years. A strange dissonance to the clear cut crystal of her voice as it emerged from the holo-projector’s speaker.

“Hux, it is good to see you well.”

“General Organa, I apologize that we have not had the opportunity to speak together sooner,” he said carefully, unsure how to meet the friendliness of her greeting. He had been dreading this call for so many reasons, and he almost wanted Organa to snarl at him, snap out a dressing-down, reach through space and twist her Force into his mind, around his throat - something familiar that would root him in reality.

Instead, she carried on with that same affable comfort.

“Rey has been keeping me up to date, and General Parnadee has been more than gracious in providing us with detailed reports on the Order’s current operations. The _Mandator_ has been keeping you busy, I understand.”

“No more than you might expect after a spontaneous coup.” The sarcasm emerged before he could stop it, and he could only hope the distance of space buried the break in his expression as he realized his slip.

It didn’t. Organa’s smile was plain, even with the broken flicker of her holo. Armitage didn’t know if it was humor or something else, however, because the smile remained as she asked, “Are we alone?”

“We are.”

“To be entirely honest, I was not expecting this call.” Her smile softened them, the wrinkles around her eyes receding enough that she looked younger than her actual years. He was suddenly reminded of the call with Poe’s father, and the strange ageless quality the holo had cast. Before him, Organa also looked ageless. Features smoothed over, face relaxed in a soft light. So different from the holos he would have taken at a desk just like this, aboard the _Finalizer_ , when his father or Pryde or Snoke had come calling.

They had never looked like this, or like Kes: soft, kindly. They had looked harsh, edges honed sharp, shadows darkened into bottomless pits.

But maybe it wasn’t the quality of the holo. Maybe it was the quality of the people themselves.

“I have information for you,” Armitage forged ahead, evading her not-question as he typed a command into his datapad. “The Supreme Leader’s command codes, so your people may assume control of the ships, along with what intelligence I have been able to unearth regarding First Order funding. There are credits being stored in several accounts across the Outer Rim, with data trails to the New Republic Senators who have supplied them. The links between them are tenuous, but I trust you would rather this information first, before it goes conveniently missing.”

“Hux,” Organa said, strong enough that he almost flinched. Almost. He met the holo’s eyes, so dark against the bright blue. “How are you?”

“How am I?” He repeated carefully.

Organa smiled again. He could not see if it reached her eyes.

“Tired,” he said, voice softening over the word while his shoulders relaxed. Somehow, his guard came down in the face of her honesty, so much he could not stop himself when he breathed, “scared.”

Quiet befell them, stretching long, and Armitage thought perhaps he’d spoken too quietly for her to have heard. He lifted his eyes to the holo, and the softening of her expression said otherwise.

“I will not tell you what to do, Hux. Your choices are yours to make, despite whatever obligations you hold yourself accountable to.”

“Are you telling me to run?” His voice didn’t tremble when he asked, but it didn’t need to. Surely Organa’s Force could reach through space time just as Snoke’s had, even though Armitage didn’t think she needed it in order to get a read on him. Not with how utterly exposed he felt.

“I am not. I am also not telling you to return.”

Armitage broke, then. Hands lifting to push into his hair, he felt the pomade release between his fingers, palms digging in hard over his heavy, sleep-sticky eyes. He’d thought he was ready for this: ready to have this conversation, ready to face his fate. Now, he only felt terrified. Poe’s distance suddenly felt like an awful mistake. How did he expect himself able to do this? How did he ever think he was strong enough to follow through with it all? How was he ever going to be able to be alone again?

 _Spineless coward, weak-willed boy_.

“Armitage,” his name broke like a cold wave, like he was back on Arkanis, treading water while staring off at a Nesig that had crested the white-capped sea as it swam straight towards him. He felt frozen, overwhelmed by awe and terror and rooted entirely in place. “Talk to me, I’ll listen.”

 _I can’t_. His fingers twisted into his hair, pulling tight. His breath was coming fast, too fast for words, even if he wanted to speak. He did, and he didn’t. But mostly, he couldn’t. _I can’t do this._

Survival. What he had spent his whole life elevating above all else. The only balm for wounds as old as his were, inflicted by a world that had never shown him mercy before. So how could he possibly expect it might now?

A buzzing reached his ear, softer than he remembered, low and rolling, like a felines purr. And the touch of fingers emerged on his arm, delicate at first, before spreading warm, like a palm to his skin.

“Tell me and I’ll stop,” Organa’s voice gentled over his panic, words as careful with him as the touch of her Force. And just as strange, because for the first time in his life, he did not recoil. He leaned into it, sought it, welcomed it.

He allowed it to envelop him. Allowed it seep soft and warm into the cracks that would maybe never go away. Maybe they wouldn’t, maybe they weren’t meant to. Maybe the most he could hope for was a scar, healed but for the memories that would always remain. And that was okay, because that, of all things, felt like justice.

“What can I expect?” He finally asked, eyes lifting to meet Organa’s. Dark in the light, but bright with something that held no physical form, her eyes held his gently. “How likely is my execution?”

Her smile flickered, but her words were clear, “Are you asking me if there is hope?”

Was he? Was that what was missing? The name to this feeling, where he could not help but pursue an unlikely, yet desperately yearned for future?

 _You’re too important to leave to hope,_ Poe had said. But Poe had lost his hope. And Armitage, he had never had any to begin with. Like mercy, hope had never served him before. But also like the touch of Organa’s Force, Armitage now sought it like it was the answer he needed to hear.

“I am, yes.”

“Armitage,” she said his name kindly, “there is always hope.” The words dropped heavy, smothering, as untenable as the terror that still coiled in his gut, two opposing forces that would tear each other apart, except then she said, “but in your particular case, I’d say there is more than hope. There is a chance.”

A chance.

“A chance?” spoken as he met her eyes again.

“Yes.”

“ _And_ hope?”

She smiled. This time, it reached her eyes.

-

Line after line of armored troopers filled the hangar, bodies edged in the cool overhead running lights that scattered shadows into shades of gray. In his peripheral, their bodies bled into one another, an endless sea of pristine white armor. Evidence of the mutiny they’d all participated in but days ago had been buffed to obscurity, each soldier present having returned their armor to regulation, as if they were still held to the standards of the Order, rather than men now free to make messes of their own lives.

Instead, they’d chosen to maintain the strict discipline the Order had always expected of them. And though their attention landed on Armitage with the weighted expectation of strength the Order held of her command, Poe would be lying if he didn’t acknowledge it was their strength which he knew Armitage sought. Because though his fate remained a secret, it did not make this march towards his death any easier, for either of them.

Beside him, Armitage’s face remained shuttered. Poe wanted to take his hand, thread their fingers together, and steer him off towards one of the other transports; make that jump to somewhere and nowhere, anywhere that wouldn’t matter, because at least they’d be there together. But that wasn’t Poe's choice to make. It was Armitage’s choice. And while maybe a bargain had been struck, Poe understood it was not solely Armitage’s responsibility for the Order or the guilt he held which propelled his boots forward.

It was the future he sought, and the beginning of a life lived for himself, one where they could be free to pursue their happiness together. That’s what prompted Armitage down this path.

A path that could as easily lead to not a beginning, but an end.

The end. _His_ end.

And the Order didn’t know. They _couldn’t_ know.

But it felt like they must know, in the way their gazes followed him across the vaulted expanse of the hangar, lined up in tidy rows, hands raised in a salute that was meant in respect but instead made this march towards the _Falcon_ feel like Armitage was already a dead man walking.

A trooper broke formation, stepping out into the path that had carved itself through these lines of people as they approached. Arm lifted in salute, her heels came together as her helmet dipped in a nod so sharp it may as well have cut Poe down to his bones.

“General Hux, it has been an honor, sir.”

A bold statement. More brave than the break in formation. An independence that Poe suspected never would have been tolerated, before, but was now flaunted for all in the hangar to see. And Poe did wonder, then, if maybe Armitage’s secret had been let out. Because the trooper regarded him with a salute that felt as final as this march, like Armitage wasn’t just leaving the Order behind, but his soul; to be buried among the scrap that the _Mandator_ would one day become, after she was stripped of not just her worth, but her story and all the memories these halls once held.

Or maybe it was simply the nature of the Order’s precarious position, and the understanding that war was never a thing to be traded for peace, only bargained away by the losers for some shred of decency in a world that would otherwise leave them to death.

“The honor was all mine, soldier.”

Poe knew Armitage had wanted to avoid this. In the abdication of his position within the Order, he had wanted to be able to disappear quietly. That his work to secure the negotiation of their surrender could be performed without the expectation of this production. But now Poe could not tear his eyes from his: Armitage, standing among his people, saying good bye to a nameless faceless trooper who he meant more to than her own biological family, and none of it felt like a production. None of it felt like a lie.

It felt real, and it felt authentic.

But most of all, it felt final.

Their gazes followed them up the _Falcon_ ’s ramp, to where Rey stood off to the side, Ren a shadow behind her. Poe went to her, eyes meeting Ren’s briefly when he came into reach of her outstretched hand. He took it, grateful for the anchor of her touch and the kindness in her dark eyes as she said nothing of how obviously unwell he was. Behind her, Ren looked past them, attention so focused on Armitage that Poe thought maybe he should go to him, steer him away to some other part of the _Falcon_ , where Ren’s presence could not destabilize him further.

Armitage’s attention was not on Ren, however. It was focused on the First Order. At the top of the ramp Armitage stood, looking out over the assemblage of people, face composed, hair perfectly coiffed, the tailoring of his greatcoat making him appear larger than life. But Poe knew it was only him who could see all the little things hidden beneath his façade: the press of his lips over words he dare not speak, the too tight twist of his fists behind his back, and the subtle cant of his body towards Poe. All a seeking of their connection that Poe wasn’t even sure Armitage was aware of.

His hand lifted in a solemn salute as the _Falcon_ ’s ramp levered upwards, his posture held until the moment the seals hissed closed.

Then, he fell apart.

Rey let go of his hands before Poe realized he was moving. He was upon Armitage, folding him into his arms, hauling him close. He was silent but for the ragged sound of his breath, head bent so his cheek aligned with Poe’s, the arms slung around his shoulders heavy with a trembling weight. He did not cry, but Poe felt the heat of emotion in his face, heard the wet quality of his inhale when he drew in a long, shuddering lung-full. Here, aboard the _Millennium Falcon_ , sealed away from this chapter of time he had spent his entire life writing, Armitage must have felt more out of his depth than he had yet. Poe could not imagine how he must feel, was unsure if he would ever understand it.

Six hours had felt like so long, when Finn had told him their eta. Six hours was certainly long enough for him and Armitage to have some of that time to themselves. But how dare Poe forget that time moved fastest when it was running out. Most of those hours had been spent with the two of them sequestered away within the bunk room, curled together in a dreamy half-sleep of slow kisses and drawn-out touches. But Poe barely remembered any of it, his body feverish where it was tucked into Armitage’s, his mind slipping into a fugue state that left him only half aware of the kisses Armitage bestowed upon his cheeks, and the tickle of heat as his breath coiled against Poe’s neck. He thought he remembered a wetness too, but that would mean Armitage finally stopped running from those emotions he refused to bare, and Poe didn’t want to think that he had slept through that.

Really, Poe wanted to tell him it was okay; that he would feel better if he let it out. But he would not lie to Armitage, not now. Not when he would also be lying to himself.

He was asleep when Rose’s voice came over the internal comms to announce their arrival outside Coruscant. The _Falcon_ dropped out of hyperspeed with a judder, one that maybe hid the jolt of Poe’s body as awareness slammed into him. Except then Armitage’s arms came around him in a fierce hold, and Poe suddenly didn’t care about hiding anything. He gave into Armitage, body pliant as he was wrapped into a hug that felt like it would take a whole army to pry them apart. Maybe that was what they faced. Maybe what was left of the New Republic’s military would be awaiting them when they landed. Was it possible that they would take Armitage’s promise to task the moment they stepped foot off the _Falcon_? That the trial Armitage expected would never come?

They still had a chance. Poe could get them out of this. He could make a plan that would see them off the _Falcon_ and away to safety before the New Republic would have the chance to intercept them. Rose and Finn would help, and Rey too - probably Ren too, for Rey's sake.

But Poe didn’t have time to consider their options, because Finn’s knock at their door was only a precursor to the greater rumble that was the _Falcon_ breaking atmosphere. They had arrived. He was too late.

Armitage held his hand as they entered the cockpit. He did not let it go even when he leaned between Chewie and Rey, in towards the viewport, eyes slightly widened as he took in the cityscape that unfolded before them.

Coruscant was a planet of skyscrapers, vast towering fingers that stretched towards a sky sundered by a moon that never set. Before them, those towers silhouetted against a late afternoon sun. It shone blindingly between the spires, throwing into relief the density of the structures, the deep cracks of pathways that intersected platforms of habitats, to expose the layered depths of her underbelly. The city not only breached the planet’s surface, but tunneled far below it. Home to over a trillion souls, Coruscant was probably the most densely populated planet within the Core, and Poe himself had called it home for several years. Sometimes even he forgot how vast it was.

Beside him, Armitage’s eyes had widened, and his mouth hung slightly parted.

“It’s enormous,” his voice softly broke the tenuous silence.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Rey whispered, and it was only then Poe realized she would have never seen Coruscant either.

Poe’s heart fluttered, then pounded, and then _fractured_ , as he realized the real enormity of this moment wasn’t the planet before them, but the two lost souls beside him, discovering a part of the galaxy the rest of them had always taken for granted.

Chewie directed them towards the tallest tower of the sector. A skyscraper Poe recognized as the former seat of the Republic. It was somewhere he’d been before, years ago, long before his naval career, when his father had brought him to Coruscant on a field trip of sorts. They had visited the tower then, ridden to the top where they’d looked out over the stretch of city planet like it were some amazing feat of sentient engineering - something to be marveled.

Now, Poe simply felt dread.

A dread that only grew as the _Falcon_ slipped out from beneath the sun to be bathed in the artificial lighting of a large hangar bay.

The hangar was mostly empty. Several figures lined the far wall, most of which appeared to be members of the Senate’s police force, by way of their uniforms. The _Falcon_ settled upon the durasteel with a gentle shudder, and Poe was afflicted with the idea that Chewie had taken particular care with the landing, as if trying to make this easier on him. Maybe, on Armitage. His quiet whine as he turned in his seat was a question Poe didn’t expect to hear, an _‘I can go back if you want’_ that broke Poe’s heart almost as swiftly as Armitage’s wet eyes did when Poe turned to him.

He didn’t know if it was the question, Armitage’s expression, or the fever that caused the shiver in his body.

“We’ll go first,” Rey said as she stood, the hand on his arm again an anchor. But it was Armitage’s hand he took this time, not Rey’s, as he pulled him aside to let Rey and Chewie by. This would be it, their last moment of privacy. Their last chance to make another memory, a good one, if there was still any goodness in the world to be had.

“You’re still sure about this?” Poe asked him as soon as the others were gone.

“A little too late to change my mind now.” Armitage didn’t meet his eyes when he replied. Instead, he looked down at their entwined hands. “Besides, you need a hospital.”

“I need _you_ , Armitage.”

Armitage’s mouth pressed closed as he finally looked at Poe, but despite the controlled line of his lips, Poe saw in his eyes how he fractured apart, felt in his hands a tremble that consumed his whole body.

Poe let go only long enough to cup his face and pull him in. Poe kissed him softly, slowly. Armitage opened immediately for him, the emotion he’d been hiding spilling free as his lips parted and his breath rushed out in a quiet sob. Poe kissed him through his tears, holding his face in his hands and smoothing the wetness away with his thumbs, until Armitage was heaving against his parted mouth, gripping Poe’s waist so tightly that surely no one could ever pry them apart. No one tried to. No one came for them.

It was Armitage who finally broke them apart.

He pushed Poe away, just enough to look at him again, as he said, “I love you Poe.” It sounded so humble, coming from him then. Not the strike to Poe’s heart he expected, but a heavy weight upon it.

Poe pulled Armitage close again, kissing him somehow slower than the first time, layering their mouths together as he said, “I love you Armitage. I love you so much.”

Rose and Rey were standing together when they reached the ramp down to the hangar. Remaining out of sight of what waited for them, Rey met him with a hug, something Poe didn’t realize he still needed from anyone that wasn’t Armitage. He sank into her hold as Rose stepped up beside them, eyes only for Armitage, however.

“You look like a mess,” Rose said boldly, a little smile on her lips that somehow didn’t seem out of place. Poe marveled at how Armitage returned it, and suddenly it was Rose who he wanted to pull into a hug. Only Rose could make someone smile at a time like this. But it was true, Armitage’s face was splotched red and his irises were too green against the blood in his eyes. He looked like more than a mess, he looked like a wreck, and Poe had a feeling he did not look much better.

When Rey drew away it was with one last squeeze. Her brown eyes kind in a way that reminded him of Leia, holding his for a long moment as her hands rubbed at his shoulders and he felt the touch of her Force against his mind. Almost immediately, the heat bled from his cheeks, and the sting faded from his eyes. Even his fever felt as if it abated, though the tremors beneath his skin remained. Rey smiled at him again, biting her lip as he raised his eyebrow, because this was something strange and new for her Force. She shrugged at him, a little sheepish, a little _‘Kylo Ren showed me’_ sing-songing through his thoughts, and then she looked to Armitage.

“I can,” she gestured at her own face, “If you want.”

It wasn’t Rey Armitage looked to, though, but Poe. So that when he stepped up alongside him, to take his hand, Poe was not expecting it when Armitage said, “Alright.”

Rey worked quickly, efficiently. Armitage held Poe’s eyes for the entire time, held them as firmly as he held Poe’s hand, squeezing it so tightly it hurt. Poe squeezed it back, surprised himself with how much strength he still had left to give.

A strength that at once felt impotent, when Armitage breathed out a sigh and broke Poe’s gaze. Poe followed his attention to where the light of the hangar beyond spilled into the _Falcon_. This was it. No more excuses, no more time, fate had arrived and all they had left was how they would greet her.

They stepped onto the top of the ramp together.

Beyond them, the arrangement of people gathered immediately struck Poe as odd. The police he expected, alongside Leia and Jain Mithra. Maybe he had even expected the man he recognized as the acting General of the New Republic’s Navy, and the handful of aides that accompanied them all. That Fineas Ofant and his droid were there felt appropriate because Poe knew that man to involve himself in anything he could reliably reason his way into, if only to make Armitage uncomfortable. Who he was not expecting was the medical team, because they were not there for Armitage, they were there for _him_.

“You did this?” Poe turned to Armitage as he said it, not so much accusing as he was terrified. He didn’t want to get taken away. He wanted to be beside Armitage until then end. Even if that end was him getting dragged off while Armitage was escorted to some secret cell in the bowels of Coruscant.

As if reading his mind, Armitage said, “You can’t help me if you’re unwell, Poe.” And for all that unfolded before them, Armitage’s voice sounded light, easy. Strong, considering the weight of Ofant’s attention upon him. Poe could feel the drag of his eyes as if it was his skin they crawled over.

“I also can’t help you from a hospital bed,” Poe’s voice broke as he said it, Rey’s careful composure peeling away in the face of what was actually happening.

Armitage squeezed his hand as his other came up to touch Poe’s cheek, eyes holding his as he stepped in to enfold Poe into a hug.

Armitage didn’t look out at the gathered crowd. He didn’t freeze up when Poe’s arms came around him. And he didn’t let Poe go, not when he drew out of their embrace, or when they walked down the ramp hand in hand.

It wasn’t until Poe was met by the medical team, and Armitage had helped him onto their stretcher, that Armitage let him go. And by that point, there was a hypo against Poe’s arm, and the quiet snick of the needle injecting something that made him at once feel light and easy, like gravity had given way, fallible in the face of Armitage’s towering figure suddenly receding into a distance Poe didn’t remember putting between them.

And he wasn’t sure if what he would later recall was something his mind had conjured, or actual reality. Because the last thing Poe remembered before darkness took him, was the sight of Armitage’s arms being drawn behind him, and the quiet snick of cuffs closing over his wrists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, this chapter was a beast to write. I hope y'all enjoy it.
> 
> Kudos and comments are appreciated, but really, can someone come over here and give me a hug? Because that's what I really needed while writing this chapter.
> 
> A big thank you to Sourlander, who let me bounce ideas off of her regarding the machinations of what is to come. Thank you so much for talking me through this! There is some particularly important set up in the last chapter and this one too, if you can find it :)
> 
> I promise to do right by Hux and give him his happy ending, but man, he sure has made that difficult ♥

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading y'all! Like my stuff? Find me on tumblr @viraaja and twitter @goddessviraaja- Stay safe and healthy during these strange times ♥


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